Shedeur Sanders’ slide down the 2025 NFL Draft board from a projected top-10 pick all the way to pick No. 144 in the fifth round to the Cleveland Browns was by far the most surprising subplot of the draft.
Because of the slide and his last name, he comes to the Browns with much more hype and expectations than a typical fifth-round pick, though one former player recently shared a surprising prediction about Sanders and believes he can make an early impact.
Former cornerback Domonique Foxworth, now of ESPN, believes Sanders will be the Week 1 starter and will win this 4-man QB competition over Kenny Pickett, Joe Flacco, and fellow rookie, Dillon Gabriel.
“Shedeur Sanders will be the starting quarterback for the Browns entering the season,” Foxworth said. “I think they want to know what they have in either Shedeur or Gabriel before the season is over because there’s a chance they’ll be at the top of a good quarterback draft again next year. I think they’ll move quickly to get those guys on the field to see what kind of players they will be,” Foxworth said.
Cleveland’s first eight games are outrageously difficult prior to the Week 9 bye, so running either Pickett or Flacco out there for the first half of the season makes sense, and then if things don’t go well, switching to one of the rookies seems like a logical trajectory.
It’s hard to figure out if all these media members predicting Sanders to win the starting role out of camp truly believe in Sanders or if they are just trying to save face after pounding the table for him to be a high first-round pick.
Sanders needs a reset of his expectations, and it’s unreasonable to expect a fifth-round rookie to be a Week 1 starting quarterback.
Luckily, it’s only May, and there is plenty more time for this to work itself out.
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