ClutchPoints
As Cleveland Browns rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders made his preseason debut on Friday night in the 30-10 victory over the Carolina Panthers, there’s no doubt that his outing turned some heads. Right from when the Browns’ star threw his first touchdown, his performance has been the talk of the football world, leading to some having some bold takes about the player.
In the aforementioned win against the Panthers, Sanders would record 138 yards to go along with two touchdown passes and zero interceptions as he played well into the third quarter, with Tyler Huntley playing the rest of the game. For a rookie that was selected in the fifth round, though that NFL Draft placement is still heavily debated, Sanders played exceptionally well, though he would say it wasn’t perfect.
“On the team’s behalf, I think I ran the offense pretty well,” Sanders said in his post-game press conference, according to the team’s YouTube page. “I feel like I got to my decisions and there are some things I could’ve done better, and different processes where I could speed my feet up. You know, I’m grateful for the opportunity and thankful that we won, but there’s still time to go to work.”
There is no denying that it was a great start for Sanders in what is a hopeful, successful NFL career after producing at a high level with the Colorado football team. With how good he played, here are some hot takes after the impressive preseason debut by Sanders:
Starting with a scathing hot take, after the Browns’ rookie’s stellar debut, Sanders should be under heavy consideration for the starting quarterback job. I fully understand how insane that sounds, but there have been numerous reports of Sanders impressing during the offseason, and he has already done so in the first preseason game against Carolina.
In Cleveland’s unofficial depth chart, Sanders was listed as fourth behind Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett, and fellow rookie Dillon Gabriel. However, with the injuries to Pickett and Gabriel, Sanders could quickly climb up the ranking and compete with Flacco.
Now, it’s safe to predict that Flacco will end up as the starting quarterback for the first game of the regular season due to his immense experience, but if Sanders keeps up this level of play, it could be hard to keep him on the sidelines for long. He will get more reps next week, as said by Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski, who spoke about the many situations during the game that were “invaluable.”
“The situations were invaluable for Shedeur. For all of our offense,” Stefanski said. “We got a third one where he had a quarterback sneak. I mean, there’s just a lot of football, and that’s by design, with him getting a ton of reps in this game, and he’ll get a ton of reps next week as well. That’s all part of our development of our young players.”
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