CLEVELAND, Ohio — The disconnect between national media narratives and on-field reality couldn’t have been more stark during the Browns’ first OTA session open to reporters. While sports talk shows across the country debate whether rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders should start for Cleveland, the Browns’ coaching staff delivered a clear message through their practice structure: Sanders has a long way to go.
“Today, at least, Shedeur Sanders very much looked like the fourth quarterback,” observed Dan Labbe during the Orange and Brown Talk podcast. “Dillon Gabriel was working his way up and down a little bit. Kenny Pickett and Joe Flacco were trading things out pretty much all day. In everything we watched, Shedeur Sanders was, I don’t want to say an afterthought, but he was definitely the last guy in the pecking order.”
This observation directly challenges the national conversation surrounding Sanders, whose celebrity status and college success has created outsized expectations. The reality, according to Browns beat reporters, follows a far more predictable pattern — one that actually matches Cleveland’s approach to acquiring their quarterbacks this offseason.
Mary Kay Cabot confirmed this assessment, stating: “He definitely was. And that’s how we had talked about it heading into this. We believed that that’s how it was going to go. But as you mentioned, that’s not how the outside world has perceived this. And some of that is because of his celebrity status and everything that surrounds Shedeur.”
The Browns’ approach to quarterback acquisition tells the real story. The team aggressively pursued Kenny Pickett early in the offseason, drafted Dillon Gabriel, and waited a full month before bringing back Joe Flacco. Meanwhile, they passed on Sanders multiple times, indicating their internal view of the quarterback depth chart.
As Cabot explained: “We know they went after Kenny Pickett hard at the beginning of the league year. We know they drafted Dillon Gabriel in the third round and that they waited a full month to go out and get Joe Flacco into free agency and that they passed on Shedeur Sanders six times and were perfectly willing to let him end up somewhere else.”
The internal pecking order doesn’t just impact practice reps — it fundamentally affects development. With limited opportunities, quarterbacks lower on the depth chart face significant disadvantages, including working with third and fourth-string receivers against lower-tier defenders.
Ashley Bastock highlighted this reality check: “And again, I mean, I think the fact that he would not have to do that is all a narrative from the outside or all assumptions based on people who were already Shedeur Sanders fans or Colorado fans or just looking at how much super stardom he brings into the NFL already.”
For Browns observers, the message is clear: follow the money and the assets. The team’s historical pattern under GM Andrew Berry has been consistent — resource allocation predicts depth chart positioning.
“You’ve always kind of been able to look, I think, at an Andrew Berry roster and be like, okay, who, who did they get? What did they give up in order to get them in in any capacity and kind of expect your depth chart to follow suit,” Bastock noted.
While head coach Kevin Stefanski downplayed the significance of the practice rotation, the reality remains that Sanders faces an uphill battle. If he enters training camp as the fourth quarterback, the compressed timeline makes it nearly impossible to climb the depth chart before the season starts.
The challenge for Sanders now becomes clear: defy the odds, outperform expectations, and force the Browns to reconsider their quarterback hierarchy. But as the first OTA session demonstrated, the gap between celebrity status and NFL readiness remains significant — and the clock is already ticking.
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