Shedeur Sanders got his third start as a pro on Sunday, and while he didn’t win, he had arguably the most impressive game we’ve seen from a rookie quarterback this season.
The Colorado product threw for 364 yards and three touchdowns, ran for another score, and largely outplayed No. 1 overall pick Cam Ward in the process.
What does Sanders’ latest performance mean for his future in Cleveland? Well, it’s complicated.
The Browns find themselves with an unenviable quarterback picture. They have two rookies on the roster who have shown varying degrees of success. They’d also have the fourth overall selection in 2026, along with a second first-rounder, if the season ended today. That’s capital that could be used to chase a top quarterback prospect in April.
Additionally, Cleveland has Deshaun Watson under contract for another season and due to carry an $80.7 million cap hit in 2026. He hasn’t played well for the Browns, even when healthy, but that money is guaranteed, so Watson could at least serve as a vastly overpriced bridge quarterback.
Sanders has four games left in 2025 to make Cleveland’s QB outlook much clearer. If the fifth-round rookie can use those games to earn the starting job in 2026, the Browns can use their draft capital on other positions and pay Watson to hold a clipboard. That’s a big “if,” especially given Cleveland’s QB history, but it can be done.
Continue Delivering Big Plays While Making Better Decisions
Sanders has shown enough in his three starts that the Browns probably won’t go back to Gabriel this season, barring injury.
Gabriel got six starts with which to audition. While he showed great poise, pre-snap recognition and a quick release, he is undersized (5’11”, 205 lbs), struggled to push the ball downfield, and is athletically limited. He looks like a quality backup—and there’s value in having one of those—but he won’t prevent the Browns from drafting a quarterback highly in 2026.
Sanders might alter Cleveland’s presumed draft plans, but he’ll have to lean into his NFL ceiling while also improving his floor. In short, he’ll need to force the Browns to believe he’s more valuable than a draft lottery ticket like Fernando Mendoza, Ty Simpson or Dante Moore.
Mendoza is currently the top-ranked quarterback on the Bleacher Report Scouting Department’s 2026 draft board. The Indiana star possesses an archetypal frame (6’5″, 225 lbs), good arm talent, tremendous processing skills and a penchant for making the big play in the big moment. All of these traits were on display during Indiana’s upset win over Ohio State in the Big 10 title game.
Of course, Mendoza hasn’t set foot on an NFL field yet, and many of the positives found in his scouting report were also found in Sanders’.
“He displays innate comfort, throwing from muddy pockets with pressure bearing down. He brings outstanding poise and calmness in late-game situations to lead his team to victory,” Dame Parson of the B/R Scouting Department wrote of Sanders last year.
On Sunday, Sanders led two touchdown drives at the tail end of the fourth quarter to give Cleveland a shot at tying the game.
While Sanders (6’2″, 212 lbs) is a bit smaller than Mendoza, he made his own reputation as a big-play, big-moment passer at Colorado. He’s shown some of that in his brief time as a starter with Cleveland.
Sanders needs to continue delivering the big plays while working to avoid some of his rookie mistakes.
While the 23-year-old has shown improving pocket presence, he still has a tendency to drift backward or bail from the pocket at times. If Sanders can continue progressing in the pocket, he can prove that these aren’t unbreakable habits.
Sanders must also cut back on moments of trying to do too much. It’s a flaw that many rookies possess, but he needs to show that he’s learning that he can’t get away with some of the same things he did in college.
If Sanders continues to showcase his ceiling while incrementally raising his floor, he’ll likely make it difficult for general manager Andrew Berry and ownership to view an unproven prospect like Mendoza as a clear-cut upgrade.
Continue Absorbing the Offense
With just six wins since the start of last season, head coach Kevin Stefanski may be on the hot seat. However, it doesn’t sound as if the Browns are preparing to make any drastic coaching changes.
Mary Kay Cabot reported on Sunday that Cleveland will “make every effort” to keep offensive coordinator Tommy Rees, who interviewed for the Penn State job. If the Browns were planning on sweeping changes, they probably wouldn’t put much effort into retaining their first-year offensive coordinator.
Sanders can help his standing with the Browns by earning the trust of the coaching staff.
There’s been no shortage of speculation that Stefanski doesn’t like Sanders and is trying to sabotage the rookie’s career.
“Stefanski has done everything in his power to keep Shedeur Sanders from succeeding in Cleveland,” media personality Skip Bayless recently posted on social media (beginning at the 20-second mark).
Of course, there’s no evidence that Stefanski is actively trying to hold Sanders back. Some fans—and Bayless—recently pointed to the decision to pull Sanders on Cleveland’s final two-point try on Sunday in favor of a wildcat play as an example of sabotage.
That might be a rational theory if A.) the Browns hadn’t regularly dialed up wildcat plays before Sanders was in the lineup this season and B.) Sanders didn’t have the ball in his hands for a two-point try on the previous touchdown drive.
Stefanski tried to dial up some trickery that didn’t work. Had Sanders converted on the previous two-point attempt—teams regularly go for two when down eight points in today’s NFL—there would be no discussion about the second attempt because it wouldn’t have occurred.
That doesn’t mean, however, that Stefanski and/or Rees fully trust Sanders to run everything in the playbook yet. How could they? He’s a rookie quarterback who has been the starter for less than a month. If he starts the final four games, he’ll have a chance to absorb more of the offense and showcase more of his upside as a signal-caller.
If the Browns are going to bring back the current staff, they’ll want to know that Sanders and Stefanski/Rees can operate on the same page. That would help quiet any outside perception that Sanders isn’t being properly supported while helping to ensure that Cleveland isn’t operating with a limited playbook in 2026.
If Stefanski and Rees are able to continue adding wrinkles each week, they’ll have a lot more trust in Sanders by season’s end and may even get to a point where they’re unwilling to take him off the field in any scenario.
It may sound simple, but the easiest way for Sanders to secure Cleveland’s 2026 starting job is to play well down the stretch and pick up some more wins.
Sunday’s performance was undoubtedly impressive. According to NFL Research, Sanders became only the second rookie in league history to record 350 passing yards, three passing touchdowns and a rushing touchdown in the same game. Joe Burrow was the first.
Of course, Sanders’ performance came against a Titans team ranked 23rd in pass defense and 29th in scoring defense. Cleveland isn’t going to crown Sanders as its quarterback of the future based on that game alone.
However, a similar performance against any one of Cleveland’s final four opponents—the Chicago Bears, Buffalo Bills, Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals—would help legitimize the highlights we’ve seen from Sanders thus far.
And closing out the season with a couple of wins would increase Stefanski’s job security, which would be good for Sanders—incoming coaches often want “their” quarterback. It would also knock Cleveland further down the draft board, which could make the decision to stick with Sanders over a rookie QB easier to justify.
If the Browns end up at, say, No. 10 or No. 11 in the draft order, trading up to land a prospect like Mendoza could be prohibitively expensive. Sticking with Sanders and using Cleveland’s two first-rounders on players to support him—adding a receiver like Carnell Tate and a lineman like Olaivavega Ioane would be a great start—might make a lot more sense.
If the Browns are being honest with themselves, this is precisely the outcome they should be hoping to see materialize. Plenty of fans have their issues with Stefanski and his offense, but he’s a two-time Coach of the Year who many executives and coaches believe would be a “prime candidate for a head coaching job” if he hit the market this offseason, according to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler.
Stefanski is the most successful head coach Cleveland has had since returning to the NFL in 1999. Starting over would carry major risks.
Moving on from the Watson debacle and rebounding from a pair of down seasons will be a lot easier if Cleveland can use its draft capital to improve its supporting cast instead of chasing another QB who may or may not be the answer.
If Sanders can continue showing growth, while limiting mistakes, delivering big plays and earning the trust of the front office, Cleveland could—and probably should—decide that its answer at quarterback is already in the building.
