Shedeur Sanders being drafted by Browns is quarterback's worst-case scenario for success
The Cleveland Browns ended Shedeur Sanders' NFL Draft nightmare on Saturday, drafting the quarterback in the fifth round.
Unfortunately for Sanders, it's likely the start of an entirely new nightmare for him: a career as a Cleveland Browns quarterback.
Since these reconstituted Browns entered the league in 1998, they have become the place where quarterback careers go to die. They have shown a knack spanning multiple generations of front office executives, coaches, and even ownership groups of being utterly incapable of developing or fostering quarterbacks into something resembling consistent, productive players, much less Pro Bowl or Hall of Fame-type passers. It is an elephant graveyard of wasted potential, poor drafting decisions, and veterans fading into obscurity.
But even setting the historic quarterback curse in Cleveland aside, the situation in Northern Ohio was probably the worst possible setting for Sanders' development.
For one thing, the Browns lack real, playmaking weapons on the offense. Jerry Jeudy and Cedric Tillman are fine, but neither one is exactly the kind of elite playmaking star you want to help bring your quarterback along. For a quarterback who likely needs an elite wideout or two to help his development along, it's not an ideal situation.
Their offensive line was a mess last season, struggling with pressure rate, and one of the highest sack rates in the NFL. They allowed a sack on 9.1 percent of snaps last year, which ranks 31st in the league.
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For a quarterback who played behind a bad offensive line in college, and who has a tendency to hold onto the ball for too long, that's a nightmare scenario.
But if that's not bad enough, the Browns' offense under head coach Kevin Stefanski is a run-heavy, play-action system that is drastically different to what Sanders ran in college. He's going to need time to adjust and learn the playbook. The Browns also lack established running backs at the moment; they drafted both Quinshon Judkins and Dylan Sampson, who will also be learning a new playbook and scheme.
Unfortunately for Sanders, it also seems like he may not be walking into a situation where the coach and front office were the ones who wanted to draft him. Ollie Connolly of The Guardian noted an Adam Schefter report that Sanders and his father Deion developed a rapport with Browns owner Jimmy Haslam, indicating that perhaps Haslam was the one who made the call to draft him, rather than Stefanski or general manager Andrew Berry.
That certainly seems true on Berry's part, as the general manager had already drafted quarterback Dillon Gabriel in the third round. When asked about picking Gabriel over Sanders, Berry said "Sometimes fit comes into play," per Scott Petrak of the Medina Gazette. In other words, Berry certainly wasn't a fan of Sanders' fit with his team, and Stefanski likely shared those sentiments, based on the pair's reactions to picking him.
Going into an open quarterback competition with a coach and general manager who aren't crazy about your fit with the team, and picked a notably inferior player to you two rounds earlier is far from the scenario you want to be in.
It's possible Sanders comes out of this, wins the starting job, and bucks decades of Browns futility to become a great player.
But he's going to have a much, much tougher road to traverse here than he would have virtually anywhere else.
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