BEREA, Ohio — Shedeur Sanders came in last on Day 1 of Browns rookie camp Friday, but not in a bad way.
He was the last player off the field after an extra throwing session with tryout receiver Jabre Barber, which will be thrown into the evaluation hopper with everything else in this quarterback competition.
“I told the players last night and we tell them this, we’re evaluating everything they do — out on the field, in the meeting room, in the weight room,” coach Kevin Stefanski said after the 2-hour, 40-minute practice.
“We want to see how they work. So this is a total evaluation. It’s not just about one rep at rookie minicamp or one rep in an OTA. It’s really all about the body of work.”
Sanders tumbled to the fifth round of the NFL draft — where the Browns threw him a lifeline by trading up to No. 144 with the Seahawks to select him. On Friday, he went second in team drills, 11-on-11s and red-zone drills to Dillon Gabriel, who was drafted No. 94 in the third round.
But that was to be expected. You don’t trot the guy out first whom you passed on six times in the draft, despite the fact many folks initially believed they’d take him at No. 2 overall.
“I wouldn’t look into really anything,” Stefanski said. “I think you’ll see the whole weekend, going through the spring, we don’t pay too close attention to who’s in there first.”
What Stefanski did do with his two rookie quarterbacks is split their reps about 50-50, with Gabriel perhaps having a slight edge.
“Yeah, that’s fair,” Stefanski said. “I think certainly for this camp, that’s the idea to split the reps.”
The real test, of course, will begin on Monday when the rookies join the veterans in the offseason program, where the competition between veterans Kenny Pickett and Joe Flacco is already underway.
When Sanders and Gabriel join them, the pecking order could look like this, based on when and how they acquired the QBs: Pickett, Gabriel, Flacco and Sanders.
Pickett was acquired at the start of the league year in March in a trade with the Eagles, and Flacco was signed late in free agency when even he didn’t see it coming.
“The guys are working really hard (in the offseason program),” Sanders said. “It’s been a really fun group to work with in the meeting room, out on the practice field. I think they push each other just by naturally being guys that work so hard and put so much effort into it in the meeting room, out here on the practice field. So it’s a really good group.”
Sanders’ extra work with Barber after practice was just one of the many positive actions he’s taken since the biggest freefall for a quarterback in NFL draft history.
Last week, he came to Cleveland to get acclimated, and surprised students at John Marshall High School Campus by conducting a Q&A and delivering an inspiring message. This week, he visited Berea-Midpark High School after students saw him working out and asked him to come.
Stefanski wouldn’t go so far as to say Sanders’ community involvement will factor into the starting QB decision, but it certainly won’t hurt him to be a positive force, especially for a team that’s had so much negative noise surrounding recent QBs such as Deshaun Watson, Baker Mayfield and Johnny Manziel.
“We always encourage our guys to get out in the community, and I think our group does a great job here at the Browns,” Stefanski said. “It’s an important part of what (team owners) Dee and Jimmy (Haslam) believe in. We’ll certainly talk to these young players about that, and they’ll have opportunities to go out into the community. So if guys are doing it on their own, that’s outstanding.”
On the field, Sanders displayed some of the traits that made him the most accurate quarterback in college ball and helped him turn around two programs, Jackson State and Colorado. He exhibited excellent arm strength on the deep ball, including on passes to tight ends Harold Fannin Jr. and John Samuel Shenker, and receiver Malcolm Johnson. During red-zone drills, he threw TD passes to Quinshon Judkins, receiver Kisean Johnson and receiver Ja’Seem Reed on a slant to close out the session.
A few of his shorter passes when throwing routes against no defense wobbled a bit like at his predraft showcase, but he if has enough zip for the deep ball, he can tweak the shorter routes with some pro coaching.
Sanders threw some mirror routes with Gabriel, and both looked good standing side-by-side throwing the same routes. Their arm strength is comparable, even though Gabriel is 5-foot-11, 205 and Sanders 6-2, 212. Their footwork on dropbacks also looked smooth and polished, and both executed well in play-action drills.
They got plenty or work in the shotgun, and also worked under center. Both got plenty of individual instruction from offensive coordinator Tommy Rees and quarterbacks coach Bill Musgrave, who worked on the nuances of their throwing motion and football.
But most of their passes were completed, and both took the coaching well and made adjustments. The true test, of course, will come when they have to face NFL defenses, and Gabriel’s quick decision-making is one of the things that won the Browns over.
One good thing for both of them — who will address the media on Saturday — is that the Browns baked extra 7-on-7s into the session so both could get plenty of reps. It will likely be that way in OTAs too while the Browns try to figure out how to get four quarterbacks all the reps they need in the first open quarterback competition of the Stefanski era.
“Today we did a couple seven-on-sevens, longer seven-on-sevens than we typically have done,” Stefanski said. “And the idea there is just to maximize reps for those guys, what we’re trying to do. And that was part of the idea of bringing in some tryout players this weekend. Now those tryout players are trying to make the football team. They’re not just here for practice. I was around a tryout player a few years ago named Adam Thielen, so we’re giving these guys every chance they can to put their best foot forward.”
Gabriel, who set the Football Bowl Subdivision record with 63 college starts, has the added layer of dealing with all of the hype surrounding Sanders. But with six years of high-level college ball under his belt, nothing much rattles him.
“It just goes back to the competition at each position is what elevates every single one of these guys,” Stefanski said. “I don’t think any of our players are looking around who’s in line with them. They’re just focused on making sure they do their job and do their job to the best of their ability.”
Likewise, he doesn’t think Sanders-mania will impact the team at large. If any team can handle QB-smoke, it’s the Browns.
“I’ve talked to our team many times over the years,” he said. “We’re not so caught up in outside noise. We kind of worry about what’s going inside, between our walls. We get that this game comes with a lot of attention and that’s the fun part of this business and the fun part of it for our fans. But for our work, we focus on what’s between those walls.”
No. 5 overall pick Mason Graham, for one, isn’t fazed in the slightest by Sanders stealing the spotlight by virtue of his celebrity and his famous dad and former coach Deion Sanders. The Browns even delayed the QBs talking for a day to give the other five picks their day in the sun, but the focus still went to Sanders.
“I mean, that doesn’t really matter to me,” Graham said. “I come to play football. If the media’s on me, then they’re on me. If the media’s not, then it’s not. I’m just going to do my job at the end of the day.”
Third-round tight end Harold Fannin Jr., who played at Bowling Green, finds the Sanders hype cool.
“Yeah, I mean obviously that’s definitely dope for him,” he said. “I guess it’s a good thing for him. He could use that to his advantage or whatever. I always see him on TikTok or something. It’s pretty cool that I get to be in the same locker as him for sure.”
In fact, he’ll take a little bit of that spillover love if it comes his way.
“Yeah, I mean, most definitely,” Fannin said. “The camera’s watching. I feel like it definitely is going to have more people looking into us and stuff like that, which I feel like is a great thing in the media world or whatever. I feel like it don’t really make no difference to football though.”
As far as passing the eyeball test, both of the rookies did so with flying colors. The spin on the ball, the accuracy, the decision-making, it was about what Stefanski expected after scouting them so heavily the past few months.
“I’ve seen both guys throw live, and that’s part of why it’s so important in that process to get around those guys,” he said. “They were as advertised. I thought both guys did a really nice job and there’s so much to work on and it’s the minutiae of the position. It’s some technique things. The operation needs to get better, all those things.
“That’s why we’re here. That’s why we’re going to work really hard over the next few days to get these guys ready for when they join the veterans on Monday.”
That’s of course, when the real competition will begin, and it promises to be a wild spring and summer.
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