The Cleveland Browns may just have the most intriguing quarterback room in all of football.
Already with the controversial and injured QB in Deshaun Watson and veteran Joe Flacco, plus offseason trade pickup Kenny Pickett, the Browns shored up their depth in the position by drafting not one, but two signal-callers in the 2025 NFL draft.
The Browns made a head-turning move to move down in the first round of the draft from No. 2 to No. 5 before using the fifth pick on defensive tackle Mason Graham of the Michigan Wolverines.
They did not draft a QB until the third round, where they took Oregon Ducks product Dillon Gabriel. Two rounds later, in the fifth, the Browns ended the excruciating wait of former Colorado Buffaloes star Shedeur Sanders by taking him 144th overall.
Will one of Sanders and Gabriel turn into a star in the NFL for the Cleveland Browns?
Only one can be the Browns’ Week 1 starter in 2025, and it’s unlikely to be either Sanders or Gabriel. The decision to take two quarterbacks in the draft also prompted the simple question about why Cleveland did so.
An NFL team executive weighed in on the subject and provided an interesting explanation.
“The hit rate is so bad on quarterbacks [that] if you can have two at-bats instead of one, I don’t think it’s a bad idea,” one NFC executive told Yahoo Sports.
In two seasons with the Buffaloes, Sanders passed for 7,364 yards and 64 touchdowns with 13 interceptions. Meanwhile, Gabriel threw for 18,722 passing yards and 155 touchdowns against 32 picks through 64 games for three different programs, namely the UCF Knights, Oklahoma Sooners and Oregon Ducks.
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