Details Emerge About Shedeur Sanders’ Unique Practice Regimen

The Cleveland Browns will roll with another starting quarterback on Sunday. Shedeur Sanders will take the reins of the offense to face the Las Vegas Raiders in his first career start.

There was a lot of chatter surrounding Sanders’ preparation last week when he was forced to replace Dillon Gabriel, who was out with an injury. Some criticized head coach Kevin Stefanski for not giving Sanders any first-team reps.

Even so, as multiple reports have shown lately, that doesn’t mean that Stefanski hasn’t worked closely with his fifth-round rookie quarterback.

As shown by NFL insider Ian Rapoport, they’ve even had some weekly sessions with additional reps and one-on-one work.

“Every week this season, Sanders and the younger players will participate in what’s called ‘Hungry Dawgs Period.’ The brainchild of head coach Kevin Stefanski, Hungry Dawgs features 8-10 extra reps for those who need it, with the focus on that week’s game plan, not random or scout-team reps. These happen either during practice or, more likely, afterward. While most backups don’t get more than a handful of reps during practice, this period is an opportunity to develop — and much of it benefits Sanders. One source described those reps as the most valuable part of practice for Sanders. Sanders then will have a private meeting with Stefanski to go over all his reps and critique them. Since backup QBs rarely get first-team reps in practice, these extra snaps are aimed at accelerating their trajectory,” Rapoport wrote.

Sanders Gets His First Start After Earning A Hard-Fought Opportunity

Since the start of the season, some of Sanders’ supporters have tried to push the narrative that Stefanski doesn’t like Sanders or that he doesn’t want him to succeed. That doesn’t make sense, given that he benefits from having the best and most prepared player out there.

The fact of the matter is that Sanders wasn’t ready to take a bigger role on the team, and that was painfully evident in his first taste of NFL action in the loss to the Baltimore Ravens.

Now, circumstances have forced the team’s hand to give him an opportunity, and it’ll be interesting to see how he fares with a week of first-team reps in the long-awaited first start of his professional career.