Did the Browns even intend to give Shedeur Sanders a starting chance, or was drafting him a mere PR stunt? With Dashaun Watson still out of Stefanski’s plans, the addition of veterans like Kenny Pickett and Joe Flacco in the QB room made sense. But again, using their two picks on QBs in April seemed bizarre, to say the least.

Former Browns head coach Eric Mangini recently even pointed out that drafting Sanders may not have been Cleveland’s plan earlier, saying, “I think the owner said ‘In the fifth round, we’re gonna draft this guy.'” When asked about the strategy behind picking Shedeur, owner Jimmy Haslam confirmed that Sanders was a good grab in the fifth round. “We thought he was good value at 146,” Haslam said on July 29. Now, this brings us down to the same question: Do the Browns really intend to start the 23-year-old over Pickett, Flacco, and Gabriel?

Well, lately, all the talk has been going against him, from being traded to not starting for the franchise in 2025. With the latest update, there finally seems to be a sigh of relief for Sanders’s Cleveland future. During the July 29 episode of The Ken Carman Show with Anthony Lima on 92.3 The Fan, Carman, a Browns insider, first said that he does not see Sanders in the first week of training camp, but a QB1 cannot be denied in the near future.

“I don’t need to see him with the ones in the first week of training camp… I’m sure we’ll have our game at some point where Shedeur is gonna start... Carman also said that, despite the reports, he does not see the Browns cutting ties with their fifth-round pick. I don’t think he’s gonna get cut. I damn sure don’t think he’s gonna get traded. I don’t think either of those things is gonna happen,” he added.

Most telling of all was this, “I think we’ll eventually get our chance, because somewhere, there’s untapped potential that we need to tap into.” That’s Kevin Stefanski thinking not as a passer-by, but as a coach already invested in what Shedeur Sanders could be. With a 74% pass accuracy in the final year for Colorado, Sanders isn’t a developmental third-stringer, but the contingency plan. And possibly, the chosen one, waiting.

GM Andrew Berry will also be eager to join the bandwagon, especially after what the Browns’ owner, Jimmy Haslam, just did.

Can Kevin Stefanski’s rookie save the pride of the Browns GM?

Speaking Tuesday night, July 29, Haslam did what many around the league have been waiting to see. He distanced himself subtly but unmistakably from the Shedeur Sanders selection. “We have a good process,” Haslam began, before quietly aiming the spotlight at his GM.

“We had a conversation early that morning, and then we had a conversation later that day. I think we had the right people involved in the conversation. At the end of the day, that’s Andrew Berry’s call. Andrew made the call to pick Shedeur,” Haslam confirmed the final call was from GM Berry. And if Shedeur struggles, or worse, never cracks the starting lineup, it’s now Berry’s burden, not Haslam’s.

However, the GM has always placed the burden collectively on HC Stefanski and others in the front office. “We do believe in best player available, we do believe in positional value, and we didn’t necessarily expect him to be available in the fifth round,” Berry said in April. According to Berry, the original plan wasn’t even to take two quarterbacks. That second QB only came into play because Sanders, who some saw as a day 2 talent, unexpectedly slipped to day 3. It was a unique opportunity.

Now, the focus lies on the rookie. Kevin Stefanski is still ready to change his order of QBs.