Three days after his unexpected fall to the fifth round of the 2025 NFL draft, Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders returned to work at his new NFL home.
Sanders, who traveled from Canton, Texas, where he watched the draft, to Cleveland, stood on a hill wearing a black t-shirt, gray shorts, and a pair of Nike Air DT Max ’96s. In a video posted on X, Sanders moved laterally across the slope, as if defending a ball handler in a basketball game, before turning and running towards the top of the hill.
Days later, on a blue-colored covered practice field in a western suburb of Cleveland, Sanders, in a long-sleeved white shirt and black shorts, called for a snap under center with a commanding cadence and rolled to his left before throwing passes to a group of volunteer receivers as music blared in the training facility.
These individual workouts, away from the crowds and cameras, were the prelude to Sanders’ next professional milestone, which would take place the following week: his first practice in the NFL.
On Friday, the cornerstone of Sanders’ professional career will unfold as the Browns hold a three-day rookie minicamp. The former Colorado star will join his fellow draftees and a host of undrafted rookies and tryout players looking to get started, and in some cases, sustain their careers with a strong performance.
Sanders will arrive at camp with an outsized spotlight for a fifth-round pick. His celebrity upbringing, as the son of Pro Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, transformative success at two college football programs, and then a stunning fall from potential No. 1 overall pick to a Day 3 selection have only heightened the intrigue surrounding him.
In Cleveland, a franchise that hasn’t had a Pro Bowl quarterback since Derek Anderson in 2007, Sanders is expected to have the opportunity to compete for the starting job. But he’ll need to overcome a series of challenges to emerge as QB1 this fall, in particular, a crowded quarterback room, a tendency to take ill-advised sacks and a draft position that has a poor track record of producing successful quarterbacks, let alone Week 1 starters.
Sanders, however, is embracing the road ahead.
I’m a Sanders,” he said after being selected with the 144th pick in the draft, “so there will always be expectations no matter what pick it is.
Shedeur Sanders
Sanders is attempting a feat that only Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott has accomplished in the last 15 years: turning a Day 3 draft position into becoming a Week 1 starter for a franchise as a rookie. He is also trying to do something that only four men have done since 1967: do it as a fifth-round pick or later. But while history isn’t on Sanders’ side, his unique situation in Cleveland, with a lack of clarity within the Browns’ quarterback room, and his talent relative to his draft position could set the stage for him to buck the trend.
During the draft, Browns general manager Andrew Berry traded Cleveland’s picks 166 and 192 to move up and select Sanders at pick 144. The value-conscious executive did so, in part, because Sanders’ talent had become too tempting for the Browns to pass up in the fifth round, even after selecting former Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel two rounds earlier.
[Sanders is] a guy we think can outperform his draft position,” Berry said.
Andrew Berry
Prescott, a fourth-round selection (135th overall) by Dallas in 2016, had help on his path to starting as a rookie: incumbent starter Tony Romo was sidelined by a back injury he suffered in a preseason game, and the backup, current Saints head coach Kellen Moore, broke his leg in training camp. The rest is Cowboys history. Prescott won 13 games and earned NFL Rookie of the Year honors in his first season, which kicked off a career that has included three Pro Bowl selections and a second-place finish for MVP (2023).
The chances of fifth-round players taking their team’s first snap of the season are even greater. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, only four quarterbacks in the common draft era (dating back to 1967) selected in the fifth round or later have started in their team’s first game of the season as rookies: Randy Hedberg (Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 1977), James “Shack” Harris (Buffalo Bills, 1969), Dan Darragh (Buffalo Bills, 1968), and Dewey Warren (Cincinnati Bengals, 1968).
Given that the expected 2024 starter, Deshaun Watson, is expected to miss a significant portion of the 2025 season due to a right Achilles tendon injury, if Sanders can emerge from a quarterback room that includes Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett, and Gabriel, he would become the first quarterback selected in the fifth round in the common draft era to start his team’s first game as a rookie, with the previous quartet having been drafted in the sixth round or later.
Equally rare is the number of quarterbacks selected after the third round who become productive starters for multiple seasons. According to ESPN Research, nine of those quarterbacks have made multiple Pro Bowls, a list that includes seven-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady, famous for being a sixth-round pick. The most recent was Prescott.
Mark Brunell, the 118th pick of the 1993 draft, is the only quarterback drafted in the fifth round in the last 40 years to win at least 10 games as a starting quarterback in the NFL.
The lack of immediate playing time, and long-term success, for these late-round quarterbacks is perhaps to be expected; the draft position is generally reserved for developing passers or players expected to begin their careers as backups to established starters.
However, in Cleveland, Sanders joins a quarterback room that has no clear favorite with the offseason workout program underway. Flacco, 40, began the 2024 season as a backup to Anthony Richardson of the Indianapolis Colts before being inserted for six starts. Pickett, the No. 20 pick in the 2022 draft, was the backup to Jalen Hurts with the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles. Gabriel, like Sanders, is a rookie adjusting to the NFL and is a player many draft analysts projected as a Day 3 pick, not the No. 94 overall selection.
We expect all players to compete,” Berry said when asked about Sanders’ opportunity to become the starter. “It’s that simple.”
Andrew Berry
Former Colorado wide receiver LaJohntay Wester stood on the second floor of the Hyatt Regency Frisco, the host hotel for the East-West Shrine Bowl in January, and reflected on which play best described Sanders in their time as teammates.
He thought for a moment, then referenced the fade to the back of Sanders to receiver Travis Hunter for a touchdown in the Buffaloes’ 31-26 victory in the season opener against North Dakota State last August.
On the play, Sanders took a shotgun snap, quickly turned his field of vision toward Hunter, and placed the ball perfectly on the inside shoulder of the wide receiver, who made an extension and acrobatic catch even though his defender was covering him.
Sanders’ draft slide was attributed to the amalgamation of a lack of elite physical traits in the eyes of evaluators and a rocky pre-draft process with teams. The play Wester referred to was the encapsulation of Sanders’ best traits: accuracy and confidence within the pocket, which could allow him to distinguish himself in OTAs and training camp.
In his final college season, Sanders ranked first in completion percentage (74%) and his 6.5% deflected pass rate was the third-lowest in the FBS. Although 24.6% of his passes were on screen routes, the seventh-highest mark in the FBS, Sanders still excelled on deeper passing attempts, completing 54.0% of his attempts that traveled at least 10 air yards, the ninth-highest rate in the country (Gabriel was second with 59.7%).
Decision-making. That’s the biggest thing and the best thing you can do as a quarterback,” Sanders said at the Shrine Bowl. “That’s my skillset. … Decision-making at the quarterback position for my skillset and what I like to do, sit in the pocket and throw it, that’s the best attribute.
Shedeur Sanders
Sanders has also protected the ball. His 2.1% interception rate was the 36th lowest among the 124 FBS quarterbacks who qualified, and he cited his experience with six offensive coordinators in four college seasons as beneficial to his transition in the NFL. But a major area of improvement that has been noted by analysts, evaluators, and Sanders himself is his propensity to take sacks.
Nobody in the FBS received more sacks in the last two seasons than Sanders, who was sacked 94 times, 16 more than any other quarterback. In Colorado, Sanders was protected by a mediocre offensive line and did not have the support of a strong running game. However, despite attempting screen passes at one of the highest rates in the NFL, Sanders’ average time to throw last season was 2.96 seconds, which ranked 110th in the FBS and higher than the national average of 2.76.
We see him as a very accurate pocket passer,” Berry said. “He does a very good job of protecting the ball. He has enough physical characteristics, whether it’s arm strength or mobility. Like all young players, there are things to improve. I think probably a lot has been said about the number of sacks he’s taken. Some of that is the environment, and some of that is improvement on his part, for sure. But he probably has a bit more of a retro or classic style of play.
Andrew Berry
During the pre-draft cycle, a current NFL quarterbacks coach told ESPN that decision-making within the pocket would be the most important thing for a rookie passer entering the league.
Being behind the sticks in the NFL is detrimental to your chances of scoring,” the coach said. “I think if you have a negative play in the NFL drive, your chances of scoring on that drive go down to 15%. I don’t think it’s the same in college just because these guys are explosive and the talent spectrum is a lot deeper. …
NFL Quarterbacks Coach
You can be behind the sticks and still end up scoring, but that’s not the case in the league because everyone is really good. I think, one, it’s decision-making, just making sure they take calculated risks and controlled aggression. And then, I think for the most part, it’s about being comfortable playing inside a messy pocket, because the defensive line is so much more aggressive and athletic, it’s just about being able to operate in a small area of space.
The coach added that both can be perfected and developed through continuous practice exercises and repetitions.
Sometimes I was trying to make too much happen,” Sanders said at the scouting combine in February. “So that comes from a do-or-die mentality, where you’re going to succeed and you’re not going to succeed. And sometimes I let myself get caught up playing the hero, but I understand where I went wrong, and now I’m going to fix it at the next level.
Shedeur Sanders
When Sanders takes the field at the Browns’ training facility for the first time on Friday, he won’t do so as the face of the franchise, but as a late-round pick whose draft status indicates that he will have to outperform his competition to emerge as a starter or primary backup in the coming months.
Browns coach Kevin Stefanski said practice reps might not be distributed equally among the quarterbacks, but he will divide them in a way that is “fair to each player and fair to the team.”
After Sanders’ long wait on draft weekend, he thanked the Browns organization for an opportunity, one he will have the chance to seize in the coming months.
We told him that it really doesn’t matter where you are picked,” Berry said. “It’s what you do from that moment on, because that’s the reality for all the guys we select this weekend.
Andrew Berry
