Shedeur Sanders can fix Browns' 33-year-old problem, but won’t be rushed

The Cleveland Browns have the most interesting quarterback competition in years. While the names on the roster provide intrigue and speculation, former Colorado Buffaloes star Shedeur Sanders, along with Deshaun Watson, Dillon Gabriel and Taylen Green are not the biggest individual reasons why. When people say the Browns have a quarterback problem, it goes much deeper than most Sanders' fans are aware.

Cleveland's quarterback issues are not recent. It’s certainly not limited to Sanders or Watson. The Browns QB situation is the single worst positional concern for any professional team in any sport on any level. No one else, regardless of sport, even comes close.

Many think the issues under center started in 1999. They actually started for the Browns in 1993, making this a 33-year problem. We understand the three-year gap with when the original team was moved to Baltimore falls during this time. More importantly, the Browns have not had a ‘great’ quarterback, as viewed by the rest of the league, since 1955.

Otto Graham was a 7-time All-Pro, led the league in passing yards for five seasons, led the league in passing touchdowns three times, won seven championships (between the AAFC and NFL) while never playing a single season that did not end in a championship game. Brian Sipe, the quarterback of the Kardiac Kids era, was a gamer, but not viewed as a top QB. Only four of his 10 seasons included throwing for over 3,500 yards, and two of those seasons included leading the league in interceptions.

Bernie Kosar is a Cleveland legend, but another gamer who never reached elite status. Jim Murray of the LA Times once said, “Kosar doesn’t throw the ball as much as he lets it go like a guy losing a bar of soap. It looks more like a complicated fumble than a pass.” He also had 40 wins in his first five seasons. Winning the then AFC Central four times. They came in second in 1988, the one year they didn't win the division in that stretch.

Most teams that experience a curse-level bad stretch trace the loss back to the original point. That point in the Browns timeline is November 8, 1993. That day, a coach no one knew as the future greatest NFL coach of all-time, Bill Belichick, decided to release Kosar and begin the long march of bad quarterback play.

The infamous jersey only considers 1999 to present day. Excluding Testaverde, Philcox, Rypien, and Zeier, who came after Kosar but before 1999. Of the total 46 quarterbacks since 1999, seven were retreads who are more known for success elsewhere. Six were viewed as legitimate future NFL starters as prospects. The other 33 names can be reduced down to a single concept, “bargain shopping."

In 1995, Art Modell decided to move the team to Baltimore. The single worst thing to affect Cleveland sports fans. The city was awarded an expansion team shortly thereafter. Everything that followed for 20 years was established in 1999 with a mentality that continued for almost two decades. The combination of Carmen Policy (President/CEO), Dwight Clark (GM), Chris Palmer (head coach), and Al Lerner (owner) used a strategy in 1999 that would doom the franchise.

At no point did that front office prioritize the offensive line. Joe Thomas in 2007 was the first great offensive lineman since before 1999. What followed the 1999 season was a 21-year trudge through arguably the worst collective quarterback play the NFL has ever seen.

A refusal to invest in the offensive line, bargain quarterbacks and putting skill positions on the back burner doomed the Browns in their return. The irony being, as the quarterback position got worse over time, the fans’ and media’s fascination with the ‘next quarterback’ only grew. Today, that remains the local Cleveland media’s favorite pastime.

Beggars must be choosers now. The days of Charlie Frye, Trent Dilfer and Brandon Weeden need to be over. Game manager types who have no elite traits where the team is viewing it as if the sum of the team’s parts will mask the quarterbacks’ shortcomings, cannot continue. For that reason, recently-departed Texas Tech QB Brendan Sorsby also must not be considered.

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The vast majority of Browns quarterbacks have similar attributes. Accuracy has not been a consistent concept and none of them had an above-average “it factor”. Rarely since 1999 has the ball gone where it was expected to go consistently. When plays broke down for almost all these QBs, only bad things happened.

Sanders and Watson are the only legitimate options for 2026 and only one should be the answer. In year four, Watson cannot be the best option, which goes beyond X’s and O’s or completion percentages. The simplest version of that is, what will the Browns learn about Watson this year they didn’t already know about previously?

Outsiders seem to think it’s simply a matter of waking up something in Watson that has been dormant. There is no realistic precedent for that. No player in the history of the sport has been that mediocre for 3-5 years and then ascends to their previous glory.

Watson has never thrown for even 1,200 yards in a single season in a Browns uniform. Shedeur threw for 1,400 in only seven games and bad OL and WRs. Jacoby Brissett and an aging Joe Flacco during partial seasons outplayed Watson. Add that to his back-to-back Achilles tears within three months — an injury that will never return to 100 percent. Leaving no realistic expectation that we’ll ever see "Houston Watson" or even "Clemson Watson" ever again.

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Suffice it to say, Watson on the field has been an objective failure. Something Browns ownership addressed in 2025, calling it “a big swing and a miss." The Browns have almost no choice but to go with Sanders. If Watson plays well, he'll go to another team in the offseason. If he starts and plays poorly, he’s likely out of the league in 2027. Suggesting that there is no future for the Browns and Watson after 2026.

Pick the player that gives them the best chance to win right now. The truth is Sanders gives the Browns the best chance to win. He put up better passing yards in 2025 than Watson did in any of his three Browns seasons. In 2025, Watson was within 10% of Sanders’ often criticized rating and QBR. As Shedeur’s famous father, Deion Sanders, once said, “This is the worst we’re ever going to be.” It can only get better after addressing OL and WR.

Sanders was the fourth quarterback in 2025. Yet, he has more wins than the others that sat higher on the depth chart. He was running for his life with the worst offensive line in the league, and he dealt with receivers who couldn’t separate or secure the ball. Sanders threw ten interceptions. All of them fall on him, but a closer look tells a different story. The first three INTs were completely Sanders’ fault. Then he went on a run of six INTs in a row that hit guys in the numbers/hands and were popped up or taken from the receiver, were the result of getting hit while he threw or the defender made an impossible play on the ball.

Do not underestimate the motivation of a new stadium, especially one that includes $1.7B provided by the team’s owners. Everything the Browns have done since the stadium in Brook Park was announced has been to prepare them to be competitive when that stadium opens, including the recent Myles Garrett trade to Los Angeles.

This season will set up the next 5-10 years for the Cleveland Browns franchise. Almost everything is already in place to contend with, except having a firm answer at QB. Making 2026 "high noon" for what the future holds. The only question that remains by season's end: Do they go all in on a QB they like in the 2027 NFL Draft or has Sanders done enough to believe they have solved the issue?

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Sanders is the only reasonable answer to who should start for the Browns this season. Which has very little to do with who his father is, his confidence, what he did at Colorado or the person he showed for years on Prime’s Family Playbook. It’s about the QB he is expected to be with the tools he has and evidence to suggest he’s moving in the right direction. It comes down to a simple moment he provided right before a game in 2025. “I’m who they’ve been looking for.”

The Browns and their fans seem to be locked in on what they’re looking for. The short answer is its conceptually Shedeur. He has good size, better than expected mobility, can make plays on the run, can make every throw he would be expected to make, is not afraid to take shots downfield, makes solid decisions most of the time, and he has a skill required in Cleveland specifically.

Sanders is disciplined, focused and does not care about outside noise (unlike Mayfield). He might be the most media trained player the NFL has seen at his age. He is built to thrive in the environment Cleveland fans and media will put him through.

The current Cleveland Browns stadium has had a waiting list for season tickets since 1997. A fanbase that is loyal to fault, rarely allows that stadium to be anything short of filled. However, if they run Watson out there against the Jacksonville Jaguars and Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the opening weeks, the team needs to be prepared for a somewhat empty stadium in Week 3. That’s how serious fans are about being done with Watson.

Both players are not working on a similar footing. Sanders won over about half the established Browns fanbase between his name being called at pick No. 144 and mid-July last year. That's when Shedeur funded and hosted a ‘fun fest’ for the victims of the Rainbow Terrace Apartments fire. He gained more fans as he proceeded to do and say everything right in public view. By the time he hit Isaiah Bond deep vs. the Las Vegas Raiders, Shedeur won over 70 percent of the fanbase. Conversely, Watson has done nothing but lose fans since he arrived.

The only realistic option is to start Sanders and give him 2026 to prove he's who they’ve been waiting for. If he plays well with a rebuilt OL and new receivers and the Browns win eight-plus games, the conversation for the next QB should be over for a while. If he plays poorly, the team has their answer for 2027.

If the season is bad, they package two first round picks and draft their future franchise QB. However, if the season is good with Sanders under center, the team would be ready to compete in 2027 with playoff aspirations. If he has made the strides the team claims he has, with a rebuilt OL and WR room, Sanders might be every inch the QB Cleveland needs him to be.

If the Browns can solve a 33-year QB problem with the guy everyone passed on, it will be the most Cleveland thing to ever happen in professional sports.