Shedeur Sanders did something yesterday no Browns quarterback has done in the expansion era, but that doesn’t guarantee another start. In Cleveland’s win over the godawful Raiders, the fifth-round pick became the first Browns quarterback to win his first career start. Full stop. That is the entirety of the accomplishment: he won his first start and did it with the Browns. Every single other quarterback who made their first start with the Browns for the past few decades lost.
Shedeur Sanders just became the first Browns QB since Eric Zeier in 1995 to win his first career NFL start, snapping a 17-game losing streak.
A debut Cleveland’s been waiting three decades for pic.twitter.com/W1pVnrcaj1
— ESPN Insights (@ESPNInsights) November 24, 2025
Yet Browns HC Kevin Stefanski declined to say Shedeur Sanders would start their next game. He only started with fellow rookie QB Dillon Gabriel missing the game due to a concussion. While Gabriel wasn’t playing particularly well, he had been consistently ahead of Sanders.
Will this win persuade the Browns’ decision-makers to turn to the more exciting and marketable Shedeur Sanders? Outside of a throw or two, the reality is he didn’t have to do too much. For one thing, the defense held the Raiders to 10 points. He technically threw one touchdown, but of the 66 yards it traversed, it was all YAC. Not exactly an “against all odds” throw, or a high degree of difficulty from a quarterback perspective. You can watch every single throw he made and see for yourself.
Sanders finished his first career start 11-for-20 for 209 yards with 1 touchdown and 1 interception. He never scrambled and he only took one sack throughout the game. While he didn’t do much that was spectacular, he generally played a fairly clean game and commanded the offense successfully.
Well, sort of, as the ground game wasn’t really working, despite two rushing touchdowns. On the day, the Browns only rushed for 64 yards despite 27 attempts. Quinshon Judkins scored twice, but mustered only 47 yards on 16 attempts.
Yet when asked if Shedeur Sanders would start next week for the Browns, HC Kevin Stefanski said, “I’m not going to get into that,”, via Pro Football Talk. “Obviously, proud of him and proud of this offense and there are a ton of things to learn from, but I’m just going to worry about today”.
He also added that he would take his time to make a decision about what’s best for the Browns, though. And one must also factor in the reality that there’s no strategic advantage to revealing it now. Although it might help the players in the locker room if they had a quarterback to rally around. And that would be hard to keep a secret if you announce it to the team.
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