BEREA, Ohio — Three days after his unexpected fall to the fifth round in the 2025 NFL draft, Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders was back to work in his new NFL home.
Sanders — who had made his way 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 clip posted to X, Sanders shuffled sideways up the incline, as if defending a ball handler in a basketball game, before pivoting and sprinting toward the top of the hill.
Days later, on a blue, indoor practice field located in a west Cleveland suburb, Sanders, in a white, long-sleeve shirt and black shorts, called for an under-center handoff with a commanding cadence and rolled to his left before launching passes to a group of volunteer pass catchers as music blasted throughout the training facility.
These individual workouts — away from the crowds and cameras — were the preamble to Sanders’ next professional milestone, set to take place the following week: his first NFL practice.
On Friday, the first steppingstone of Sanders’ pro career will unfold when the Browns hold a three-day rookie minicamp. The former Colorado star will be joined by his fellow draftmates and a host of undrafted rookies and tryout players aiming to begin — and in some instances maintain — their careers with a strong showing.
Sanders will arrive at the 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 surprising fall from potential top pick to Day 3 selection have only added to 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 receive an opportunity to compete for the starting job. But he will have to overcome a number of challenges to emerge as QB1 this fall — most notably a crowded quarterbacks room, a tendency to take ill-advised sacks and a draft slot that has a poor track record of producing successful quarterbacks, let alone Week 1 starters.
Sanders, though, is embracing the road ahead.
“I’m a Sanders,” he said after he was selected 144th overall in the draft, “so it’s always going to be expectations regardless of what pick I am.”
SANDERS IS ATTEMPTING a feat only Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott has accomplished in the past 15 years — parlaying a Day 3 draft slot into becoming a franchise’s Week 1 starter as a rookie. He’s also trying to do something only four men have done since 1967: doing it as a fifth-round or later selection. But although history isn’t on Sanders’ side, his unique situation in Cleveland — with a lack of clarity within the Browns’ QB room — and his talent relative to his draft slot could set the stage for him to buck the trend.
During the draft, Browns general manager Andrew Berry traded Cleveland’s 166th and 192nd picks to move up to select Sanders 144th overall. The value-conscious executive did so, in part, because Sanders’ talent had become too enticing for the Browns to pass on in the fifth round, even after selecting former Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel two rounds before.
“[Sanders is] a guy that we think can outproduce his draft slot,” Berry said.
Prescott, a fourth-round selection (135th overall) by Dallas in 2016, had help along 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 went on to win 13 games and NFL Rookie of the Year honors in his first season, kick-starting a career that has included three Pro Bowl selections and a second-place finish for MVP (2023).
The odds of fifth-rounders taking their team’s first snap of the season are even longer. According to 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 season opener 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).
With 2024 starter Deshaun Watson expected to miss a significant portion of the 2025 season with a right Achilles injury, if Sanders can emerge from a quarterbacks 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 season opener as a rookie, with the quartet above all having been drafted in the sixth round or later.
Just as rare is the number of passers drafted after the third round who go on to become productive starters for multiple seasons. According to ESPN Research, nine such quarterbacks have made multiple Pro Bowls — a list that includes seven-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady, famously 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 past 40 years to win at least 10 games as a starting QB in the NFL.
The lack of immediate playing time — and long-term success — for these late-round quarterbacks is perhaps expected; the draft slot is usually reserved for developmental passers or players expected to begin their careers as backups to established starters.
However, in Cleveland, Sanders joins a QB room that has no clear front-runner with the offseason workout program getting underway. Flacco, 40, began the 2024 season as the Indianapolis Colts‘ backup to Anthony Richardson before being inserted for six starts. Pickett, the 20th pick in the 2022 draft, was Jalen Hurts‘ backup with the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles. Gabriel, like Sanders, is a rookie adjusting to the NFL and is a player many draft analysts foresaw as a Day 3 selection, not the 94th overall pick.
“We expect every player to compete,” Berry said when asked about Sanders’ opportunity to become the starter. “Simple as that.”
FORMER COLORADO WIDEOUT LaJohntay Wester stood on the second floor of the Hyatt Regency Frisco, the host hotel for the East-West Shrine Bowl in January, and pondered what play best described Sanders in their time as teammates.
He thought for a moment, then referenced Sanders’ back-shoulder fade to receiver Travis Hunter for a touchdown in the Buffaloes’ 31-26 season-opening victory over North Dakota State last August.
On the play, Sanders took a shotgun snap, quickly pivoted his frame of view to Hunter and placed the ball perfectly on the inside shoulder of the wideout, who made an acrobatic extension and catch despite his defender being draped over him.
Sanders’ draft slide was attributed to the amalgamation of a lack of elite physical traits in the eyes of evaluators and a rocky predraft process with teams. The play Wester referenced was the encapsulation of Sanders’ best traits — accuracy and confidence within the pocket — that 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% off-target rate was the third-lowest mark in the FBS. Though 24.6% of his passes were on screen routes, the seventh-highest mark in the FBS, Sanders still excelled on deeper pass attempts, completing 54.0% of his attempts that traveled at least 10 air yards — the ninth-highest rate in the country (Gabriel was second at 59.7%).
“Decision-making. That’s the biggest and best thing you can do as a quarterback,” Sanders said at the Shrine Bowl. “That’s what my skill set is. … Decision-making at the quarterback position for my skill set and what I like to do — sit in the pocket and throw it — that’s the best attribute.”
Sanders has also protected the ball. His 2.1% interception rate was tied for 36th lowest among 124 qualifying FBS quarterbacks, and he cited his experience with six offensive coordinators in four college seasons as being beneficial to his transition in the NFL. But one major area of improvement that has been noted by analysts, evaluators and Sanders himself is his propensity to take sacks.
Nobody in the FBS took more sacks over the past two seasons than Sanders, who was taken down 94 times — 16 more than any other quarterback. At Colorado, Sanders was protected by a lackluster offensive line and didn’t have the backing of a strong running game. However, despite attempting screen passes at one of the highest rates in the FBS, 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 view him as a highly accurate pocket passer,” Berry said. “He does a really good job of protecting the ball. He has enough of the physical characteristics, whether it’s arm strength or mobility. Like all young players, there are things to improve. I think probably much has been said about the number of sacks he’s taken. Some of that is environment, and some of that is improvement on his end, for sure. But he has probably a little bit more of a, call it retro or classic style of play.”
During the predraft 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 one negative play on 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 spectrum of talent is so much deeper. …
“You can be behind the sticks and end up scoring still, but that’s not the case in the league because everyone’s just really good. I think, one, is the decision-making, just making sure they take calculated risks and controlled aggression. And then I think for the most part it’s being comfortable playing inside of a messy pocket, because the defensive line is so much more aggressive and athletic, it’s just being able to operate in a tiny area of space.”
The coach added that both can be honed and developed through continued practice drills and reps.
“Sometimes I was trying to make too much happen,” Sanders said at the scouting combine in February. “So that just comes from a mindset of do-or-die mentality, to where you’re going to succeed and not succeed. And sometimes I got caught up playing hero ball, but I understand where I messed up, and now I’m going to fix it at the next level.”
WHEN SANDERS TAKES the field at the Browns’ practice facility for the first time Friday, he won’t do so as the face of the franchise but as a late-round pick whose draft status signals he’ll have to thoroughly outplay his competition to emerge as a starter or top backup in the coming months.
Browns coach Kevin Stefanski said that practice reps might not be spread out equally among the quarterbacks but that he’ll divide them up in a way that is “fair to each player and fair to the team.”
After Sanders’ lengthy wait on draft weekend, he thanked the Browns’ organization for an opportunity — one he’ll get the chance to seize in the coming months.
“We did tell him that it really doesn’t matter where you’re picked,” Berry said. “It’s what you do from that point forward, because that’s the reality for all the guys that we selected this weekend.”
