Total Pro Sports
Cleveland Browns rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders delivered sensational television ratings for his NFL preseason debut last Friday.
Shedeur Sanders had a superb preseason debut against the Carolina Panthers, completing 14 pass attempts for 138 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions while posting 19 rushing yards on four carries in a 30-10 victory.
According to Nielsen (via The Sporting News), Sanders’ preseason debut generated 2.2 million viewers. That’s awfully high for a preseason game, especially in a Friday night television slot.
Doing over 2 million for a preseason game is crazy work 😳
(via @nielsen) pic.twitter.com/5t0vDPpWfl
— The Sporting News (@sportingnews) August 12, 2025
What can we say? He hasn’t taken an official NFL snap yet, and Shedeur Sanders has quickly generated significant fan attention and media coverage. And to think ratings should be even higher when the Browns take on the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles on Saturday (1:00 p.m. EST).
Sanders is competing for the starting quarterback job alongside veterans Joe Flacco and Kenny Pickett and fellow rookie Dillon Gabriel. Sanders and Tyler Huntley, whom the Browns just picked up last week, were the only quarterbacks who played against Carolina.
It has been widely reported that Flacco and Pickett are the front-runners for Cleveland’s starting QB job, and understandably so. Flacco won Comeback Player of the Year honors with the Browns in 2023, while Pickett has the higher upside and experience over Sanders and Gabriel.
But another strong preseason performance or two can only strengthen Shedeur Sanders’ chances of winning over the QB1 job. We’ll see how he fares against Philadelphia on Saturday.
Sanders was supposed to be an early or mid-first round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, but he inexplicably fell to the Browns in round five at No. 144.
Well, Sanders’ strong performance up to this point is already making other teams look foolish for passing on him. Maybe they didn’t view him as a first-round talent, but there’s no way a player of his skill set should have fallen into round five.
