It didn’t take long for the so-called “silly season” portion of evaluating Cleveland Browns quarterbacks to get underway.
Observers couldn’t even agree on whether or not fifth-round draft pick Shedeur Sanders or third-round choice Dillon Gabriel produced the better performances during the club’s rookie minicamp last weekend.
Browns insider Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer addressed the matter for a piece published on Friday.
“[Sanders] didn’t beat out Gabriel hands-down like some have reported — it was much closer to a tie — but he looked very good and more than held his own,” Cabot wrote. “It was a great start for both, and a nice base on which to build their case in the QB derby…”
Former NFL running back/current analyst LeSean McCoy and The Athletic’s Zac Jackson previously said that Sanders looked “like the best player” at the Browns’ rookie minicamp and that it was “not close.” However, Tony Grossi of ESPN Cleveland/The Land on Demand later made it known he felt Gabriel looked like the better signal-caller.
While the Browns are allegedly holding an open four-way competition for their starting quarterback job that will run through a portion of August, most expect that head coach Kevin Stefanski will name either Joe Flacco or Kenny Pickett Cleveland’s Week 1 QB1. The Browns could trade or cut the loser of the Flacco-Pickett battle so they can have both Gabriel and Sanders on their active roster come September.
“Both players put surprisingly few passes on the ground considering they were throwing to mostly tryout players whom they had met the day before,” Cabot added about how Sanders and Gabriel performed during rookie minicamp. “…Both quarterbacks made good decisions and were accurate most of the time. Their footwork on dropbacks looked smooth, and they looked comfortable working under center as well as out of the shotgun. Sanders had to recover from one errant snap, but quickly scooped the ball and made the play.”
Of the two rookies, Sanders undeniably has more star power and the bigger presence as it pertains to generating headlines. Many outsiders believed Sanders was a first-round talent, but it’s now known that his handling of the predraft process impacted how he was viewed by teams around the league.
Meanwhile, analysts predicted ahead of the draft that Gabriel would be a third-day selection.
If nothing else, both Sanders and Gabriel should already have a better idea about what it means to take part in a quarterback competition as members of a franchise that has been searching for a long-term answer at the sport’s most important position since it returned to the NFL in 1999.
