Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders isn’t exactly receiving a ton of support from the NFL community this week.
Sanders appeared in eight games as a rookie, completing 56.5% of his passes for 1,400 yards with seven touchdowns and 10 interceptions. Although he was confident heading into training camp, he lost the starting job to Deshaun Watson on Monday. While some fans and media members have urged the Browns to trade him, there’s no team out there itching to make him their starter.
According to Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports, there are NFL coaches and front-office members who aren’t exactly confident in Sanders becoming a long-term starter.
“Him not even being able to beat out Deshaun (who hasn’t played in an NFL regular season game since his first Achilles injury in 2024) is probably telling,” an NFL front office member told CBS Sports.
NFL teams have expressed concerns about the celebrity and distraction components that come with employing Sanders. They’re also not convinced he’s an elite-level talent.
“Sanders slipping to the fifth round of last year’s NFL wasn’t just because of some pre-draft team interviews that reportedly didn’t go well or concerns about him being a distraction,” Zenitz wrote. “Frankly, there were a number of personnel and scouting sources who’d told CBS Sports during the buildup to the draft that they didn’t have starter grades on Sanders and that — just from a skill set perspective — they questioned his capability to become an effective starter at the NFL level.”
Patrick Gorski-Imagn Images.
Is there still hope for Shedeur?
Even though Sanders lost the Week 1 job to Watson, he has reportedly shown nothing but class behind the scenes.
“I mean, you talk about somebody that really understands the long game, and really, I think has come to understand the long game, right? What are we really in this for? What am I in it for? To have the Browns be an organization that people aspire to be. Right? The long game. Right? Where do we want to be in the long term?” Monken said. “And he understands that as well as a quarterback. Right? Where he was at, where he’s at now, where he wants to get to-that is what’s so awesome about Shedeur understanding that. We met this morning for a good long time, and all he had was a smile on his face because he understands.”
If Watson struggles or gets injured this fall, Sanders may have an opportunity to prove he belongs in the NFL.
For now though, it sounds like the jury is out on Sanders.
