No player has more pressure on him this Saturday than Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders.
Sanders, the No. 144 overall pick from last year’s draft, started seven games for the Browns in 2025. The Colorado product completed 56.6% of his pass attempts for 1,400 yards with seven touchdowns and 10 interceptions.
There are plenty of Browns fans hoping that head coach Todd Monken will name Sanders the Week 1 starter, but a final decision won’t be made until after Saturday’s preseason game against the Buffalo Bills.
“I don’t anticipate the quarterback decision going past early of next week,” Monken said.
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With that being said, the Browns plan on letting Sanders get reps in with some of their starters this Saturday.
“For Shedeur Sanders’ start today vs. Bills, the Browns will rest some starters but not all,” ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler said. “LT Spencer Fano and WR Denzel Boston will play, I’m told.”
Sanders needs a strong performance against the Bills if he wants any chance at being the regular-season starter.
Did Monken already make his decision behind closed doors?
Before the Bills and Browns held joint practice sessions this week, Monken said his starters would rest if they performed well at training camp.
“We both talked about that if we see out of our ones, our group, our older players what we want to see on Thursday, they would not play in the game,” Monken said. “We agreed upon that. The plan is that we’ll play our ones a significant amount against each other on Thursday in a controlled environment. Not that the other guys aren’t going to get reps, but in a controlled environment and see where we’re at.”
Since Deshaun Watson isn’t starting this Saturday, that could be Cleveland’s way of saying he’ll be the Week 1 starter.
For what it’s worth, Watson completed 11 of 15 passes for 126 yards during the Browns’ preseason opener. He also has a $40.9 million cap hit for this fall, so it’s possible the front office wants him to start to try and justify that figure.
