When the Cleveland Browns released their first unofficial depth chart of the season, Joe Flacco was listed as the starter. Veteran Kenny Pickett was listed as the backup. Third-round pick Dillon Gabriel was listed as the third QB. And fifth-rounder Shedeur Sanders was listed fourth.
On the surface, this looks like doom and gloom for Sanders, who was projected to be selected in the first few rounds of the draft but instead fell deep into Day 3 and was the second quarterback drafted by his own team.
But that’s just the surface. There are a few things to consider. First is that Sanders will have plenty of opportunities to move himself up the depth chart, beginning with the team’s first preseason game, which he is expected to start with both Pickett and Gabriel currently nursing hamstring injuries. Play well in practice and put together a good performance, and the depth chart can change very quickly.
But we should also establish that it is not at all a big deal — yet — for Sanders to be listed fourth (i.e. last) on the depth chart to begin with. Sanders is listed behind two veterans in Flacco and Pickett, and then behind a player (Gabriel) who was drafted two rounds ahead of Sanders. Even if you think Sanders was the better prospect, the team has more invested in Gabriel and therefore it makes sense that he be given early deference on the depth chart and in the pecking order. It’ll likely stay that way unless and until Sanders decisively outperforms him on the field.
But even if that weren’t the case, a late-round draft pick bringing up the rear of the depth chart isn’t unusual in the slightest. Just look around the rest of the league. Eagles sixth-rounder Kyle McCord is also listed fourth on his team’s depth chart, for example, and none of the Giants’ Jaxson Dart, the Seahawks’ Jalen Milroe, the Steelers’ Will Howard, the Colts’ Riley Leonard, the Texans’ Graham Mertz, the Raiders’ Cam Miller, the 49ers’ Kurtis Rourke or the Dolphins’ Quinn Ewers is listed higher than third.
No. 1 overall pick Cameron Ward of the Titans and Tyler Shough of the Saints are the only quarterbacks listed among his team’s top two passers. Everyone else is, at least for the moment, the backup to the backup or somewhere beyond that.
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Still, Sanders might be something of a longshot to actually make the team. Teams very rarely — if ever — keep four quarterbacks on the active roster. Barring that unusual situation occurring (which is admittedly a possibility in this case because the Browns’ situation is just that unclear), Sanders is probably going to have to beat somebody out in order to secure a spot on the 53-man roster on cutdown day.
Realistically, he probably has to beat out Pickett.
Flacco is the team’s presumptive starter and probably would not have signed with the Browns if he didn’t know that was the case. Gabriel was a Day 2 pick. Teams want their Day 2 picks to make the team. They would have to do something really bad in training camp to not make it.
That leaves Pickett, who was acquired for a fifth-round pick and Dorian Thompson-Robinson. The Browns have comparatively little invested in him relative to Flacco and Gabriel, and about as much invested in him as they do in Sanders.
The difference is that Sanders is cheaper because he’s a fifth-round pick and Pickett is a former first-rounder in the final year of his rookie deal, and that the Browns have four years of team control on Sanders vs. just one on Pickett. Those factors could work in Sanders’ favor if they perform at a similar level during camp. If he straight up outperforms Pickett on the field, then he would just make Cleveland’s decision that much easier.
All of that said, fifth-round picks don’t always make their team’s opening-day roster. They’re more likely to do so than sixth- or seventh-rounders, obviously, but they’re not locks. There is a possibility that Sanders gets cut if he doesn’t look the part in camp.
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If that eventuality comes to pass, it’s hard to see all that many teams being interested in securing his services on the waiver wire and putting him directly onto the active roster. After all, they all passed on him in the draft multiple times.
But maybe somebody would be interested in bringing him onto the practice squad and trying to develop him there, while obviously retaining the option to simply cut ties if it doesn’t work out or if the public relations fallout isn’t worth the benefit they get from having him on the team itself.
The Jets don’t have a quarterback of the future. Neither do the Saints. (But again, they passed on Sanders to begin with and took Shough instead.) Teams like the Eagles and 49ers are always looking to add quarterbacks to their stable, to name two examples, but it’s worth noting that they both added Day 3 quarterbacks in this year’s draft, as mentioned above.
We know Jerry Jones loves nothing more than creating a stir around the Cowboys, so perhaps Dallas could be interested in Sanders if it wouldn’t require a draft pick to secure him. The Rams have set themselves up to potentially get a quarterback in next year’s draft by securing an additional first-round pick, but they could also look to take a free dice-roll.
All of those options, though, seem unlikely. If they were that interested in Sanders, they probably would have just drafted him while he was sliding down the board. And if he performs at such a level that a Browns team with no hope at quarterback cuts ties with him at the end of camp, it would be a very bad sign for his future prospects. That’s why he has to start making his case to move up the depth chart fairly soon.
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