Shedeur Sanders made his first start of the season for the Cleveland Browns in last week’s loss to the New Orleans Saints. He got off to a slow start and had some ups and downs throughout the day, but overall, he ended up posting 325 total yards and two touchdowns without turning the ball over.
Todd Monken was proud of his young quarterback’s performance, but on Wednesday, he confirmed this was still Deshaun Watson’s job and he’ll be starting on Sunday when the Houston Texans come to town. However, that doesn’t mean that Sanders didn’t make the decision a little bit harder than it could have been.
While speaking with the media on Wednesday, Monken was asked whether or not he considered sticking with Sanders as the starting QB. His response was fairly telling, though it doesn’t sound like Sanders could have done much more to potentially change his mind. This was always Deshaun’s job until proven otherwise.
“Ultimately, Deshaun has done a really good job for us. That’s nothing to take away from Shedeur, because I thought for ten weeks of really not taking any reps, I thought he did a really good job. There’s a lot of room for improvement with both of them. We consider anything that’s going to help us be better as a team. The intention was for Deshaun to start and I just wanted to make sure we talked through it as a staff…really was pretty simple,” Monken said.
Did Todd Monken consider sticking with Shedeur Sanders at QB? #Browns pic.twitter.com/lFnWpCrwQJ
— Daryl Ruiter (@RuiterWrongFAN) November 11, 2026
Sanders performed about as well as anyone could have expected and he came alive down the stretch to nearly win the game. He did next to nothing in the first half before making a handful of huge throws in the second half and in the final few minutes to get the game to overtime.
On the other hand, Watson has orchestrated a game-winning drive in each of the Browns’ wins this season. He has been undeniably clutch when the team needs him most, and it’s obvious that he has had a positive impact on the young guys around him on offense.
This was always projected to be a one-week absence for Watson and there isn’t a quarterback controversy unless his play takes a significant step back. We’ll see if he can get this team back on track against the Texans on Sunday to avoid falling to .500.
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