First off, let's be very clear.
Of course Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders, as a result of his interesting four-man quarterback competition with Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett and fellow rookie Dillon Gabriel, could end up being a starter here.
He's got college skins on the wall. The guys above him aren't All-Pros. He sells merchandise. Injuries happen. "Giving up on the season'' happens.
So it's possible ... and not in the goofy way FS1's Colin Cowherd means, it the TV host having apparently seen a tweet about the rookie fifth-round pick Shedeur having one good day at practice and then declaring the competition over.
Seriously. He did.
On his Thursday show, Cowherd called Sanders the "most efficient and most productive with the fewest reps" among Cleveland's quarterbacks. The host believes the 23-year-old has already won the battle.
"I've seen enough. I'm calling it a wrap," Cowherd said. "The Herd newsroom is calling it in Ohio. By a landslide, Shedeur Sanders should be starting."
Cowherd has, of course, literally "seen'' ... nothing.
And, on the flip side, while we're being clear?
Of course Sanders could get cut. That's life as a fourth-string player and a fifth-round pick.
Bleacher Report is getting a lot of play right now for suggesting the possibility ... when again, it's not outlandish at all.
Meanwhile, Sanders is a hot story and he knows it. He's got a YouTube channel (that makes him rather unusual for a fifth-round rookie) and he recently opened up about how he feels competing with the other fellas.
“It's lit,” Sanders said. “Quarterback room is fun. Every day is fun going in there. Everything is real good, I'm happy. We got a bunch of different personalities in the quarterback room, and just talking to the quarterbacks that took NFL snaps, that played in the league, you're living the experience through them also and ask them whatever questions come to mind.”
And that's how it should be - how it must be.
National media outlets are milking all of this for what it's worth, sending the opinion pendulum swinging wildly back and forth.
But in the center, this is just about whether a football player is good enough to make the team. Sanders' isn't exactly the same as 89 other guys ...
But in that one most important sense, he indeed is.