Hall of Fame left tackle Joe Thomas has often been a voice of reason when it comes to his former team, and when the 10-time Pro Bowler speaks, it’s best to listen.
Ahead of the 2025 season, he recently gave his two cents when it comes to rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders, who officially made the 53-man roster this week and will serve as the third-string quarterback behind Joe Flacco and Dillon Gabriel.
FOX News shared an article about Thomas delivering a much-needed reality check to those calling for Sanders to start right away, saying that he still has a lot of developing to do.
“I think he has a higher ceiling. He’s a great playmaker, he has tremendous accuracy, he has that feel when he is in the game of how to make those big plays. But just because you have that ceiling that’s really high and that potential to be able to do that doesn’t mean you can do it right now. I think the reason Shedeur fell to the fifth round is because they feel like he’s got a lot of development that he still needs to do before he can be an NFL starting quarterback,” Thomas said.
The media and the fans often talk about Sanders as if he were the top-10 pick that he was projected to be, and they still haven’t come to terms with the fact that he is a fifth-round, third-string rookie who undeniably has big flaws in his game that need to be worked on.
The final preseason game put a magnifying glass on Sanders’ biggest issues, and if fans and the media want him to live up to the hype, then they need to understand how irresponsible it is to put a fifth-round rookie with legitimate issues getting the ball out on time behind an offensive line that gave up 66 sacks last year.
On top of that, five of Cleveland’s first six games this season are against playoff teams from last year, while the other is the Cincinnati Bengals, who only missed the postseason because they had a historically bad defense.
We’re all excited about Sanders, but everyone needs to listen to the left tackle on this one.
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