With Dillon Gabriel in concussion protocol, the 2-8 Browns will turn to their third starting quarterback of the season in Week 12. Fifth-round rookie Shedeur Sanders will get the nod against the Raiders on Sunday, head coach Kevin Stefanski announced.
Gabriel suffered his injury in last Sunday’s loss to the Ravens, paving the way for Sanders’ NFL debut. He completed 4 of 16 passes for 47 yards and an interception in relief of Gabriel, a third-round rookie who has struggled mightily since taking over in Week 5.
The Browns named Gabriel their starter after trading Joe Flacco to the Bengals on Oct. 7. The left-hander has tossed seven touchdowns against two interceptions in eight games, but he has posted a subpar 59.2 completion percentage and an 80.8 passer rating. His 30.9 QBR ranks 32nd in the NFL.
Stefanski said Gabriel’s health is “improving,” but not quickly enough for him to play against another 2-8 team this weekend. Sanders will get all the first-team reps in practice this week, per Mary Kay Cabot of cleveland.com. That should give Sanders a better chance to succeed than he had when he came off the bench in Week 11.
There may not have been a more polarizing prospect in last spring’s draft than Sanders. Many expected him to go in the first round, but the former Colorado standout fell all the way to pick 144. Even though the Browns took Gabriel two rounds earlier, they couldn’t pass on Sanders’ value in Round 5. They traded up for the 2024 Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year, which came after some teams reportedly removed Sanders from their draft boards. Various clubs had concerns that Sanders didn’t take his pre-draft interviews seriously, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk wrote in May.
While the Ravens were prepared to use the 141st pick on Sanders, he was reportedly uninterested in joining a team with an established QB. AFC North rival Cleveland presented a clearer path to playing time than Baltimore, which has two-time MVP Lamar Jackson entrenched as its signal-caller.
Sanders will now have at least one week to make his case to serve as the Browns’ starter for the rest of the season. Poised to finish near the bottom of the league standings for the second straight year, the Browns will enter the draft armed with two first-round selections (one acquired from Jacksonville). If the Browns aren’t convinced they have the answer in Gabriel, Sanders, or the injured Deshaun Watson when April rolls around, they could use a high pick on a QB.
I kinda want him to do good he has gotten so much hate for a 5th rounder so good luck! also his dad kinda sucks as a coach.
He hasn’t gotten hate…he’s a great young man…the media blows up everything
L.E.G.E.N.D.A.R.Y
I.N.H.I.S.M.I.N.D
There is only up after that performance Sunday
huge news for the unemployed friend in your group chat
Take the under
Hope they don’t rob his home again. I’m still waiting for some celebs to set up a sting to catch the robbers in the act when they try to rob a home while the person is playing a game or doing a concert.
How about hiring a couple Off duty cops who bring along some less than friendly German Shepherds?
As a Browns fan I’m excited to see what he can do as next year we will be drafting our franchise QB…Shedeur should make a very good bridge QB
He’s def not a franchise QB I think the only reason why the browns drafted him was that it came from ownership as the coach and GM weren’t on board
Not true! That was all Andrew Berry seeing the value in the 5th round….Stefanski liked him but preferred Dillon Gabriel…Haslam definitely didn’t make that pick….
Tracenv, your Browns homerism is making you look bad. Stop it.
Yeah, he’ll be very good at making sure the browns pick high again.
It’s only one week’s worth, of course, but it will be interesting to see how he does with a few first-team reps under his belt.
Facing the feeble Raiders gives the young man a better chance to succeed.
An excellent point
By passer rating, Sheduer’s performance vs. the Ravens was worse than Nathan Peterman’s 5 interception game in 2017. Shedeur had a passer rating of 13.5. Peterman was at 17.9. Keep in a mind a QB who throws nothing but incomplete passes with no interceptions would have a passer rating of 39.6.
Watch every pass and run on YouTube. He really wasn’t that bad. He avoided rush well. Had some drops. Ravens knew they were passing so he was at a severe disadvantage.
The cope with sanders is unreal. He was terrible.
He showed some flashes for sure, but looked like a rookie who was not prepared for the speed of the NFL. He needs to process faster and avoid drifting back when there’s pressure. I’m not a necessarily a SS fan, but certainly not a “hater”. I’d love for him to succeed, but there are reasons 32 teams passed on him at least 4 times each.
I like his personality.
What flashes bro lmao he completed some check downs threw an INT and sailed an endzone pass and thats it. Yall just say anything
He came in mid game. 1st NFL game. Keep calm…
And was still worse than any other player that has done that…
One half of football doesn’t mean anything. Do you know ball?
Whatever you need to tell yourself to cope. The rest of us will just laugh.
I’m just curious as to when two teams last played each other where you could add 12 to their combined win total and get their combined loss total…lol.
And only 5 CBS stations are scheduled to air the Browns-Raiders game. Cleveland, Toledo, Lima, Las Vegas, Reno.
This is the real, quality information that we need right here. I’m not even being sarcastic. Great detail.
“Hey Dad, tell Mom I might not be home for Thanksgiving. I’ve been taken hostage in Lima and their making me watch the Browns-Raiders game until their demands are met”.
My God…they really did it. They really murdered him
He does poorly people bash him
He does well people will downplay it and bash him
You gotta be a pretty sad lonely miserable the wife left you took your dog person to actively hope for and wish for a young kid to not make it.
That’s a bit extreme. I don’t really fall into either camp, but this also isn’t a poor, helpless young kid, either. Sanders has done plenty to contribute to the scrutiny he’s received through his words and actions. It’s also a bit extreme how much some people hate him.
In either case, though, he’s now a professional who is paid quite well by any non-NFL standard, and performance critiques aren’t hatred. There has been some hatred, of course, but let’s acknowledge that that’s not all there is out here. Deion himself is infamous-at least in my mind-for portraying athletes as “young men” or “kids” when people are talking about their performance. The critiques that are just that-critiques-are totally fair and inbounds.
Other than that, I agree that people should be fair. I don’t necessarily care about most of the extracurricular stuff, as I don’t judge people personally without knowing them, but I also recognize that actions will bring reactions, especially public ones. I wouldn’t say all the criticisms are unfair, even if some are, and I wouldn’t start blaming peoples’ misery for reacting to Sanders a certain way, either.
People don’t hate him, they hate his stupid cult following. Just look at the level of cope in this comment section.
He does poorly people acknowledge he does poorly. What a tough world we’re in omg!!!
Why not give Cabot a look?
I am looking forward to this. I hope he does well, because I’m a Browns fan.
I am tired of people like Cam Newton bashing the Browns for the way they are not “developing” Sanders. SS was a 5th round pick, passed by 32 teams at least 4 times. Most QBs in that situation do not get on the field in the 1st year, get any reps in practice nor last any amount of time in the NFL (don’t mention Tom Brady nor Kirk Cousins: both outliers and you know it).
Yes, it’s dumb the Browns drafted both of these guys and then dumped all the veteran QBs to force a 5th round to HAVE to start, but that is an entirely different issue.
Let’s remember who he’s playing this week.
Thank goodness, give him an opportunity or trade him to the Saints
Browns fans, and the franchise itself, are still suffering from that Watson trade.
The talk of drafting a franchise quarterback in 2026 or 2027 is smoke & mirrors trying to disguise the fact that they already drafted a franchise QB in 2018 … then traded for Watson and shipped Baker to Carolina for a conditional 5th
Ridic