Total Pro Sports
As Joe Flacco, Shedeur Sanders, Kenny Pickett and Dillon Gabriel continue to battle it out for the Cleveland Browns’ starting quarterback job, it appears that at least one of them will be gone before the regular season kicks off.
With Deshaun Watson likely to miss all of 2025 after re-rupturing his Achilles, the Browns moved quickly to rebuild their quarterback room. GM Andrew Berry brought back Joe Flacco and acquired Kenny Pickett via trade before drafting Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders.
According to a report from ESPN’s Dan Graziano, the Browns will “likely” trade one of their four quarterbacks before they kick off the season at home against the Cincinnati Bengals on Sept. 7:
“The Browns are struggling to find ways to get all four quarterbacks an appropriate number of practice reps to stage a real competition, and that could cost the rookies, who spent most of the spring working behind Flacco and Pickett on the depth chart.
Cleveland is open to the idea of any one of the four winning the job for Week 1, and the way the coaching staff divides reps in the coming weeks could offer clues about who is in the lead. It’s also possible — even likely — they end up trading one of these guys before the season starts to ease the logjam.”
Multiple reports out of Cleveland suggest that Flacco and Pickett are the two front-runners for the starting quarterback job. Flacco, of course, won Comeback Player of the Year honors in 2023 after leading the Browns to an 11-6 finish and surprise playoff appearance.
Shedeur Sanders was widely expected to be a first-round pick in April, but he unexpectedly fell out of the first four rounds before the Browns took him 144th overall. The Sanders pick there was surprising to some, since Cleveland had already used a third-round pick on Gabriel.
Pickett suffered a hamstring injury during Saturday’s practice, and it’s unclear when he’ll return. We’ll see if Sanders and/or Gabriel can make the most of the extra reps in practice with Pickett out.
A lot can change between now and final roster cuts, but it feels like Sanders or Gabriel would be the odd man out in the event of a Browns quarterback trade.
As a former 2022 first-round pick, Pickett has more upside than Flacco, and of course more playing experience than the rookies. Flacco has the most experience in Cleveland’s offense, though, so the Browns’ best bet is to keep the both of them.
In that event, it only makes sense for Berry to trade one of Gabriel or Sanders. The former may have been drafted earlier, but most scouts and analysts agree that Sander has the higher upside.
