CLEVELAND, Ohio —The Browns have created what longtime cleveland.com columnist Terry Pluto describes as a “horror movie” scenario for rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders, potentially setting up another talented prospect for failure through a combination of poor roster construction and unrealistic expectations.
“The lead on my column today is about how I moaned when the Browns drafted him,” Pluto said on this week’s Terry’s Talkin’ podcast.
“And not because I’m down on Shedeur, but it’s like I’ve seen this horror movie before and I know what’s going to happen: There’s going to be pressure to put him in; he’s not ready to go; and he’s not with a good team.”
The Browns have a troubling history of mismanaging young quarterbacks, from Tim Couch to DeShone Kizer and several others in between. What makes Sanders’ situation particularly concerning, Pluto says, is the unusual path that brought him to Cleveland and the contrast between his college experience and NFL reality.
“He was always at exalted status,” Pluto said. “I doubt anybody ever pressured him to win a job in high school or college or anywhere else. He came in as the star quarterback and the anointed one and he was used to that.”
Sanders has only ever played for his father, Deion Sanders, who served as his offensive coordinator in high school and head coach at both Jackson State and Colorado. This development path didn’t prepare him for life as a fifth-round pick fighting for opportunities, Pluto said.
The Browns’ quarterback room construction exacerbates these concerns. After trading Joe Flacco and Kenny Pickett, the team now relies exclusively on rookies, creating what Pluto compares to the disastrous 0-16 season in 2017.
“Is it 2017 all over again?” Pluto asked. “That was Kizer, that was Cody Kessler, and that was Kevin Hogan. They had a quarterback room where nobody had ever won an NFL game and it looked like it.”
The expectations are particularly problematic given Sanders’ playing style at Colorado, where he was frequently under duress. “He was sacked 92 times over the last two years, more than anybody else in Division I,” Pluto noted, highlighting that Sanders’ tendency to “run backwards” under pressure could spell disaster behind Cleveland’s struggling offensive line.
Pluto said Sanders is facing a baptism by fire instead of having time to grow into the job of NFL quarterback, a luxury Patrick Mahomes had with the Chiefs and Jordan Love had with the Packers.
“That’s why I said I moaned,” Pluto said, “because I knew they weren’t going to put him in cold storage for a year. And I don’t mean negatively. I mean where you’re learning. ... Patrick Mahomes basically sat for a year and it didn’t hurt him becoming a Pro Bowl quarterback and one of the best ever.
“When you get off to a rocky start, like, for example, DeShone Kizer did, and some others, sometimes you don’t recover. You just don’t... You get physically beat up and mentally destroyed.”
Sanders will make his first NFL start Sunday against the Raiders, and only time will tell whether it will be the start of something meaningful, or another name on the growing list of Browns QB starters who didn’t last.
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