It seems like the entire football world has been on Shedeur Sanders watch since the NFL draft last spring, and now, Cleveland’s rookie quarterback finally gets his first chance to start, against the Raiders on Sunday, in place of fellow rookie Dillon Gabriel, who is out with a concussion.
Sanders made his pro debut last week in the second half of a 23-16 loss to the Ravens. He struggled against the blitz, which led to criticism of his play and of Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski’s decision not to give his backup quarterback practice reps with the first-team offense going into the game.
Now that he’s running the show for at least the next week, let’s identify what went wrong for Sanders in his first outing, get into the practice-rep drama, and look at what to expect from the NFL’s most-talked-about fifth-round pick.
What went wrong against Baltimore?
The stat line wasn’t pretty, nor was his process on a play-to-play basis. Sanders completed just four of his 16 pass attempts for 47 yards, threw an interception, and took two sacks (one being a strip sack).
It doesn’t take a quarterback expert to understand that a 25 percent completion rate is bad news for any passer, but there are troubling things in Sanders’s tape that can help explain why he was so inaccurate. The biggest issue was his inability to manage time and space in the pocket. That impacted his vision as he worked through progressions.
Take a look at the play above. The Browns called a downfield passing concept with chip protection, meaning the tight end and running back help block edge rushers before releasing into their routes in the flat. Baltimore was running man coverage (which is what an offense wants based on this play call), and Sanders should have worked through his progression from right to left and picked out the matchup he wanted to attack. In this case, that’s receiver Jerry Jeudy on the deep crosser in the middle of the field or receiver Cedric Tillman on the in-breaker behind it. The pocket was clean enough for Sanders to make a throw with touch to either of those teammates, but he hesitated long enough to let pressure affect him, and it resulted in a weakly thrown incompletion to his running back.
Contingency planning is instrumental for any quarterback’s success, but Sanders has struggled to find a plan B when his first read is covered or to improvise when the play breaks down. He has a tendency to hold on to the ball too long, but he doesn’t use the extra time with the ball in his hands to find an answer. This was clear in his preseason debut, and it was the reason for his interception last week against Baltimore.
In this case, I would have liked to see Sanders get through his progression faster, especially in a third-down situation like this one. He and his coaches should have known there was a good chance Baltimore would blitz, and he should have looked for an open receiver (in this case, Malachi Corley) underneath. And while this is something that can improve with practice and comfort within the scheme, Sanders’s lack of creativity after the snap has caused him problems going back to his time in college.
It’s easy to see the end result—a poorly timed and off-target throw. It’s also worth noting how his technique breaks down when he’s under duress. This next play is another third down against Baltimore, with the defense bringing another blitz. Here, the Browns are running the same passing concept from the play we just looked at above, but this time Jeudy is open on the corner route. The problem is Sanders’s footwork. Even though he’s drifting in the pocket toward the route, he doesn’t get his body balanced in order to make the throw, and his hesitation to set his feet gives the pass rush enough time to get home and secure a sack. Again, this is something Sanders might be able to improve as he gets more comfortable with the speed of the NFL game, but it’s been an issue in his play long enough for us to wonder whether it’ll always be a problem for him.
OK, did he do anything well?
If Sanders is going to have any shot at consistent success in the league, his dropbacks have to look more like what you see in the play below. In a similar passing concept to our first clip (this time with receivers running a deep post at the top of the screen and a deep in at the bottom), Sanders stands tall in a clean pocket and delivers a well-placed throw into an open window, just as his receiver comes out of his break.
A play like this shows he can be efficient and decisive when receivers come open; he just needs to do it more consistently. I'm not certain which version is more likely to show up against the Raiders this week, because it’s not possible to iron out every issue in just one week’s time.
What I do know is that Raiders edge rusher Maxx Crosby wreaks havoc on the best passers in the league, and if Sanders hesitates at all, Crosby will be a nightmare for him to deal with. Sanders can move around in the pocket a bit, but last week showed that he’s not an explosive or strong enough athlete to rip away from a rusher’s grip, nor does he have the rare arm talent to throw with good velocity and accuracy while he’s being hit. The ball has to get out quickly, and Sanders has to trust the structure of his offense. That will come with practice time (more on that in a minute) and being the focal point of Cleveland’s game plan for the first time.
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What’s the best-case scenario for Sanders in his first start?
As far as opponents go, this is a dream for a first start. In spite of Crosby’s singular excellence, Las Vegas has one of the worst pass defenses in the NFL, with no real difference makers in the secondary. Patrick Graham’s defense is around the middle of the pack in blitz rate and won’t play much man coverage, so if Sanders is able to identify zone coverages before the snap, he could be more successful than he was against Baltimore’s aggressive attack.
Because the Raiders have average players at linebacker and safety, Sanders shouldn’t see nearly as many exotic blitzes and coverages as he did coming off the bench last week. And if Graham does choose to blitz, the Browns’ receiving tandem of Jeudy and tight end Harold Fannin Jr. should win their one-on-one matchups and create easy opportunities for Sanders to get them the ball. On top of that, Sanders may not face as many obvious passing situations as he did last week because the Browns should be able to move the ball on the ground against this soft Raiders front enough to keep the offense on schedule. The best-case scenario for Sanders is to finish the game without throwing any interceptions or taking any damaging sacks while cashing in with touchdowns when the Browns reach the red zone.
That sounds great. What’s the worst-case scenario, then?
Crosby could do to Cleveland what Sanders’s teammate Myles Garrett just did to Baltimore. When we’ve seen Sanders play, both last week and in the preseason, he’s moved through his progressions too slowly and hasn’t been able to get the ball to his receivers on time. One of his worst habits is creating his own pressure by poorly managing the pocket. The worst-case scenario against Las Vegas is that Sanders bails out of clean pockets, holds the ball too long, and invites pressure that will force him into ill-fated throws, like his interception last week. If he’s unable to work within the structure of the offense, it’s possible we’ll see Sanders take four or more sacks and commit multiple turnovers.
And if Sanders plays like he did in the preseason against the Rams, when he was sacked five times in 17 snaps, well, that’s very bad news.
Is the lack of first-team reps really a big deal?
Frankly, no. And I was a bit miffed seeing national reporters post that Sanders would be working with the first team in practice this week, as though it’s news that the starting quarterback would be practicing with the starting offense. While I can appreciate giving clarity to a story line when fans have demonstrated interest (in this case, Sanders’s practice time), I fear that Sanders’s biggest (and least reasonable) supporters tether themselves to conspiracies when he struggles—as though there were some deliberate attempt to hold him back. If you dare, just check the replies under this tweet from Daniel Oyefusi of ESPN.
In my experience as a college player and a high school coach, backup QBs typically work with other backups in practice, unless there’s a planned rotation of players at positions like wide receiver, defensive back, running back, and defensive line. Teams have only a few days to practice and prepare for an upcoming opponent, which is plenty of time to put a game plan together but not nearly enough time to divide reps equally among all players. And once you learn how the typical week in the NFL is set up, it's easy to understand how a backup quarterback could go weeks on end without sharing the field with the starting offense.
On a normal week, Mondays and Tuesdays are spent off the field. Wednesday is the first practice of the week, when coaches install the core elements of a game plan (think about first and second downs). In terms of workload, this is the heaviest session, as coaches want as much quality practice tape as possible so they can evaluate and adjust their play calls. It would be rare for a backup quarterback to take any starter reps in this type of practice.
On Thursdays, coaches typically emphasize third-down passes, the two-minute drill, and other high-leverage situations in the game plan. In theory, it's possible to give your backup QB some reps in a two-minute drill, because offenses are more likely to run a base set of plays. But there are so many nuances in this situation—down, distance, time/timeouts remaining, scoring margin, and yards to gain—that the only time you’d typically see a non-starter with the first-team offense in a two-minute drill is in training camp.
Fridays are typically the shortest practice of the week and focused on specific situations like red zone, goal-line, and short-yardage plays. This is when teams work on their bespoke personnel packages, formations, and play calls, so there’s almost no space to rotate in a backup quarterback. Your starter needs every rep possible to work through the new calls and see how the upcoming opponent typically defends in the red zone.
All of this means most of a backup quarterback’s preparation is mental. They study film at home and spend time in meetings with the starter and the offensive coaching staff, going over the game plan. After considering the rhythm of team preparation, you’d be hard-pressed to find opportunities for Sanders, who until this week has been either the second or third QB on the depth chart, to work with the starters at any point in the past three months.
And because the rules of practices are negotiated in the collective bargaining agreement, the on-field reps are a zero-sum game, meaning every rep you give to a non-starter is one you can’t get back. And with Gabriel (another rookie) ahead of Sanders on the depth chart, those practice reps became even more precious once Joe Flacco was traded away. If you want to quibble with Gabriel being a starter in the first place, I understand—just know that gripe is separate from how often Sanders should’ve been used in practice, especially if the offensive staff never seemed to be in a rush to play him in the first place.
Whether Sanders succeeds or not, why can’t anyone just be normal about this?
I’m not sure, and I don’t know if anyone can give you a succinct answer. Shedeur Sanders isn’t the first high-profile quarterback prospect to enter the league, but he is one of the first quarterbacks whose celebrity far outpaces his on-field impact—and so much of that is tied to Deion Sanders.
As a player, “Prime Time” personified cool for a large swath of Gen Xers, and short of athleticism and all the private training money can buy, that’s the most valuable asset Shedeur has inherited from his Hall of Fame father. We fans got to know him through Deion’s reality shows and vlogs, just as Gen Z and Gen Alpha sports fans were coming of age. Shedeur has had a rare gravity in our modern attention economy, and he was just good enough in college at Jackson State and Colorado, all under the tutelage of his father, to justify the investment in him.
For much of his life, Shedeur experienced a fast-tracked process to the top, and it's jarring for some to see that Cleveland isn’t continuing that process. I’d never assume that both father and son need each other to succeed, but the concerns that Sanders wasn’t prepared for life outside of the Coach Prime ecosystem existed before he was drafted, and it seems that the Cleveland staff was determined to take a slow pace with his development before injuries and trades made starting him this week a necessity.
The reality is that the discourse about Sanders in the NFL has never been normal—not during the predraft process, certainly not during the draft, and not in the months that have followed. And it certainly hasn’t helped that the Browns have largely refused to be direct about a development plan for him.
There’s been an odd vagueness from Stefanski (who always talks about Sanders in tandem with Gabriel and other rookies, rarely speaking directly to his development), and some have interpreted Stefanski’s silence as secrecy in an attempt to undermine the QB’s development or play politics with GM Andrew Berry. Messaging matters when it comes to quarterbacks, and this organization has failed at producing a franchise quarterback enough times to know this. The current QB mess is one this entire organization has made for itself.
I prefer not to deal in theories, hypotheticals, or fan fiction in football because we’ll always have the tape to tell us the incontrovertible truth. The film told the truth about Sanders as a draft prospect, and so far, it’s told the truth about why he hasn’t gotten a chance to start as a rookie before this week.
Now, the opportunity is here for Sanders to prove what he is or isn’t as a pro, even if it's for only one game. And whether he throws four touchdowns or four interceptions, we’re all guaranteed another week of frenzy after Sunday.
