The Cleveland Browns always knew that having Shedeur Sanders would come with plenty of scrutiny.
Some believe that’s one of the many reasons he wasn’t taken earlier in the 2025 NFL Draft.
It’s not even Week 1 of the regular season, and that’s already on full display.
The Browns went 3-0 in the preseason, and quarterbacks Joe Flacco and Dillon Gabriel looked sharp in the finale.
However, all the talk has centered around how head coach Kevin Stefanski and the Browns didn’t put Sanders in a position to succeed and pulled him with two minutes left in the last game.
Former Browns offensive lineman Mitchell Schwartz took to social media to ridicule that notion.
“I’ll dip my toe into the Shedeur waters very briefly and say I think it’s funny that people say: he wasn’t given enough opportunities by the coaches, the guys he played with s*****, the WRs didn’t get open, the OL didn’t block for him, Stefanski didn’t call any good plays, and oh yes they also should have left him in for the 2 minute drive despite all that because THAT would have been the fair thing to do,” Schwartz wrote on X.
I’ll dip my toe into the Shedeur waters very briefly and say I think it’s funny that people say: he wasn’t given enough opportunities by the coaches, the guys he played with sucked, the WRs didn’t get open, the OL didn’t block for him, Stefanski didn’t call any good plays, and oh…
— Mitchell Schwartz (@MitchSchwartz71) August 24, 2025
Sanders is the fourth quarterback on the depth chart, which is the way the Browns envisioned their roster, and, judging by the way Gabriel has looked, it makes sense.
Granted, Gabriel has never been projected to be a star, or even a full-time NFL starter, but the third-round pick looks comfortable in this offense, and it’s not like the Browns owe first-team reps to Sanders, who was a fifth-round pick.
The narrative of the Browns drafting Sanders to then make sure he didn’t succeed is highly questionable.
Why would any team waste reps and a roster spot to make a point, especially a team that’s been looking for a quarterback for three decades?
Sanders has to earn his playing time just like everybody else.
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