Kevin Stefanski and the Cleveland Browns must be facing a double-edged sword moving into the 2025 season. After all, he is spoiled with more than one option for the quarterback room. Blessed with two rookies, one hand, there is the 144th overall pick and the fifth-round pick, Shedeur Sanders. “I like everything there is about Shedeur,” said Stefanski in an interview with CBS Sports.
After all, Shedeur whitewashed his image from being the most sacked player in college football history to earning Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year. On the other hand is Browns’ third-round and 94th overall pick, Dillon Gabriel. The former Oregon quarterback broke the all-time NCAA record for career total touchdowns with 189. Prepping up two rookies is no cakewalk. That’s when Michael Lombardi tried to pull down the rose-tinted glasses from Stefanski’s eyes, showing him things as they are.
On the August 7th episode of the 92.3 The Fan podcast, hosts Ken Carman and Anthony Lima invited Lombardi on the call. He was asked to share his insights about the quarterback competition in the Browns camp. Lima enquired, “Here, you have two veterans, and you have two rookies, and those rookies taken in the third and fifth rounds. I don’t know how you evaluate those quarterbacks. Give them enough reps with your joint practices and preseason games to truly get the best out of them. Can it be done?” The race in Stefanski’s squad is between Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett, Shedeur, and Gabriel.
Credits: Michael Lombardi Instagram
A recent report from The Athletic’s Zac Jackson suggests that Flacco is the “favorite” to be the Browns’ starting quarterback. Meanwhile, Pickett has been bogged down with a hamstring injury. Bringing the focus back to rookies, Shedeur and Gabriel, Lombardi addressed the elephant in the room. He shared, “There’s only so many reps every day at practice. And how you divide those reps is most critical in terms of how you’re building your team, because if you’re giving 20 reps a day to a guy who’s not going to ever play for you, you’re wasting 20 reps.”
He added, “And once you determine what value you have in a player, who do you need to develop? Who don’t you need to develop? It’s impossible to develop two young quarterbacks at the same time. It’s not college.” Already, injury is a major concern in Stefanski’s squad. Shedeur, Gabriel, and Pickett, all three of them, have dealt with injuries during the first two-plus weeks of training camp. Flacco has been the only one who has stayed healthy. Talking about the rookies, Gabriel struggled statistically on Day 1 of minicamp, completing just 7-of-18 passes with one touchdown.
But Stefanski coddled him and tried to guard him, stating, “To put the ball out on a play-action when it looks like a run, pulls it back, and throws the pass. There’s a lot of skill to that.” This makes Shedeur’s path only tougher in the Browns’ camp. Even though he had thrown two touchdowns on 10-of-12 completions in the same session, but will have to fight for limited first-team reps. Now, what does Lombardi think about Shedeur’s breakthrough in Stefanski’s camp?
Shedeur Sanders is prepping himself for a long-term race
Well, there have been too many things on Shedeur’s plate. Even though his dad, Deion Sanders, kept his battle against cancer a secret, thinking about his son’s crucial transition, he later came to know about it. This definitely made it hard for Shedeur to focus. As in an interview with The Athletic, the ex-Buffs quarterback shared, “Dad, he’s one person that he’ll handle his. We’ll handle what we have to do. It was something that we really didn’t need to have a formal conversation about because (Deion) was like, ‘Y’all need to focus on what y’all need to focus on. Y’all can’t sit here and feel sorry for me.’”
So, fighting distractions has been a big thing lately for Shedeur. So much so, that he does not want his dad to be around cheering for him. The reason? He is not feeling proud of himself and is now working on how to reach the pedestal he envisions himself on. With such a motivated drive, Lombardi pleads for more patience from both Shedeur and Gabriel. After all, they have got a long way to go before they reap the sweet fruits of their efforts. So, chances of them starting are dim.
The analyst shared, “What people don’t understand about the NFL draft is it’s always for your next year’s team. It’s never for the current team. Certainly, you’ll get some production out of a draft pick during the current year, but really, what you’re building on is for the 26 team. He’s not the 25 team. You know, could he go in and play? Perhaps. Would he would he be effective? Probably not fair to the kid. So, I think ultimately every draft class is for the next year’s team.” Talking about patience? Shedeur’s have seen the best and the worst. He is going to hang around super tight till he makes his dad proud.
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