Browns: Could a new QB option appear in 2027?

The Cleveland Browns will follow a familiar, tired script in late July when they open training camp in Berea.

Without a true starting quarterback on the roster, head coach Todd Monken has the unenviable task of choosing between:

• Veteran Deshaun Watson, who has only played in 19 games since joining the Browns in 2022, has twice suffered season-ending injuries in that time, and has not been consistently good since 2020.
• Second-year player Shedeur Sanders, who is coming off a rookie season that was statistically one of the worst the NFL has seen from a first-year quarterback in the past 25 years.
• Fellow second-year player Dillon Gabriel, who played as poorly as Sanders last season, or rookie Taylen Green, who might be in line for a “package of plays” but is nowhere near being ready to see the field as a starter.

For those who have been fans of the Browns for more than just the final seven games of the 2025 season, they know how this movie ends.

Cleveland has not made it through an entire season with just one starting quarterback since 2020, so whoever wins the starter’s job between Watson and Sanders will not make it through the entire season either because of injury (most likely Watson) or continued poor play (both fit that category).

And ready or not, Green is practically a lock to start at least one game at the end of the season. As for Gabriel? He will most likely spend the fall in Atlanta, Miami, or somewhere else.

From there, the Browns can finally move on from Watson, keep Sanders as the most-popular backup quarterback the league has ever seen (or not), let Green continue as the developmental quarterback, and hope to strike it rich at the position in the 2027 NFL Draft.

But what if another option presents itself to general manager Andrew Berry? An option that is both familiar and would represent possibly the greatest comeback in franchise history?

We’re talking, of course, about Baker Mayfield.

The No. 1 overall selection in the 2018 NFL Draft, Mayfield looked like the answer after leading the Browns to the playoffs in 2020 and getting off to a hot start in 2021 before a shoulder injury derailed the season in Week 2. Things spiraled from there as the Browns took the “big swing and a miss” on Watson in 2022 and subsequently traded Mayfield to the Carolina Panthers.

It took him a while to refind his mojo, but once Mayfield landed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2023, he led the Buccaneers to the playoffs in 2023 and 2024, and only missed on making it three years in a row thanks to some late-game collapses by the defense down the stretch.

Mayfield is entering the final year of his contract with Tampa Bay, and the two sides are “not close” to reaching a new deal, as Mayfield said on Friday during an interview at his youth football camp:

“We love the...