Not only have the Browns battled through two weeks of training camp at CrossCountry Mortgage Campus, but they are also in the thick of the preseason in the middle of their second set of joint practices.
The first set – which was new for Stefanski to hold a joint practice in the first week of the preseason – came against the Panthers. The second came in the second week of the preseason, with two joint practices against the Eagles.
In those practices, the Browns used the reps for their veteran players, while they saved preseason game reps for younger players and rookies. Flacco took a majority of the first team reps against the Panthers and against the Eagles, as Pickett worked through his return from a hamstring injury and only participated in 7-on-7 drills. Gabriel took his first team drills following his hamstring injury on Aug. 11 and stacked consecutive days of team drills in joint practices with the Eagles.
"You see the ability of the quarterback to be able to process early, process post snap and react to what the defense is doing," Rees said. "And what we try to tell them is, hey, we have to play our plays on principle, and we want to see how quickly they can react to a defense without a ton of game planning and pre-game studying going into it."
After facing a Jim Schwartz attack-style defense for the first two weeks of training camp, seeing another defensive scheme is especially beneficial for the quarterbacks because of the controlled environment they can create. The quarterbacks wear different colored jerseys – for Cleveland, that jersey is orange – so there is no contact in drills. The coaching staff is also able to script the practice and create different scenarios for the quarterbacks to simulate – such as a 2-minute drive, third-and-long, high red zone or low red zone – to be intentional about what they want to see.
"When you're going against the same defense every day, you may not get to all the throws in a progression," Pickett said. "I think by going through some joint practices and seeing different looks, you get to some guys later in the progression where here we may get to them in 1 or 2, in that same play against Philly we could get to 3 to 4, because of the different looks that we see by them defensively. So, I think it offers a lot for us."
However, injuries have taken another toll on the quarterback room as Sanders sustained an oblique strain throwing early in drills during the first joint practice with the Eagles. He did not practice on the second day and is unlikely to play in the second preseason game against the Eagles.
But Sanders' start against the Panthers proved beneficial. After only taking certain reps in the joint practice, a majority of his reps came during the game. Stefanski said Sanders knew that most of his reps would come in a game setting, and he used the first preseason game to his advantage.
As Sanders took the field for the first time in Browns' uniform at Bank of America Stadium, he felt a variety of emotions.
"I'd say that's the least worried I ever felt in my life. It was the least pressure I felt in my life when I was out there," Sanders said. "I didn't really feel those nerves and just those different aspects of getting ready to play in an NFL game."
The Browns have a set standard in the quarterback room to take the field and operate, which Sanders showcased at a high level through managing pressure from the Panthers' defense and throwing with accuracy to his receivers. That calm demeanor allowed him to operate the offense with success, completing 14 of 23 passes for 138 yards and two touchdowns.
For Rees, Sanders' NFL debut demonstrated a key piece of progression for the rookie.
"You start with his ability to run the offense with smooth operation, and I thought he did that for the most part throughout the game," Rees said. "Obviously taking care of the football is at an all-time premium in those preseason games. You're out there with a lot of different guys, a lot of different wideouts, a lot of different linemen, so that's really important. And then, he made some great throws and extended some plays that really resulted in explosives. So again, you saw some of his natural instinct to play the quarterback position during the game, and a lot of things to correct, but a lot of signs of growth throughout training camp and a lot of signs of his ability to move the offense successfully."
When the Browns face the defending Super Bowl champions in the second preseason matchup, the starting quarterback is yet to be decided. Evaluations of injuries were needed before a decision could be made on who will take the field for the Browns on Aug. 16 – another bend in the road for the ultimate decision of the starting quarterback for Week 1 of the regular season.