Head coach Todd Monken provides context to Dillon Gabriel's back injury as Cleveland Browns move forward with four quarterbacks
In a surprising twist to the Cleveland Browns quarterback room, the team kept all four quarterbacks ahead of the league's 53-man roster cut-down day. It's not so much keeping four that caught people off guard, though, it was how they managed to do it.
With Deshaun Watson already anointed the team's QB1 and Shedeur Sanders tabbed as the primary backup, those two were safely on the team following Cleveland's preseason finale with the New England Patriots. Things got a little quirky from there, though, as Taylen Green wound up being the third QB retained on the active roster, and Dillon Gabriel landing on the IR with a back injury of some sort.
The ailment seemed to pop up out of the blue, as there we no signs that Gabriel had suffered in the game he started Thursday night. Four days later, with the roster finalized, for now and Gabriel officially set to miss the start of the season, Monken tried to add some context to the situation.
"I don't know exactly when it happened," Cleveland's head man confessed. "He feels like it was the third down in the zone read that he pulled it, kind of got twisted awkwardly. I think he's going to be fine and just a little uncomfortable throwing now."
The play in question happened near the end of the first quarter, as Gabriel opted for keeping the ball on a read option and wound up taking a shot to the back as he went down for a loss of four.
It didn't seem to bother Gabriel at the time because he remained in the game for the rest of the first half of action and even led three more scoring drives after that to cap off a productive 12-of-15, 186-yard, 3-touchdown night.
The performance left room for plenty of speculation over how the Browns would handle their packed QB room. As it turned out, they managed to keep four, just in an unexpected way.
Gabriel will now be required to miss at least the first four games of the regular season. Once he's cleared to practice again, there will be a 21-day window opened for him to be activated to the 53-man roster, or else he reverts back to the IR and will be prohibited from returning at all in 2026.
With Gabriel sidelined, Monken revealed that both Sanders and Green will split reps with the scout team throughout each week of game prep. For the latter, it's an opportunity to utilize some value reps that he wasn't getting during training camp and try to prove he should be the QB3, even when Gabriel does return.
For now, though, Green isn't thinking to far ahead.
"Every single day is an opportunity. Yeah, he's on the IR, but he's pushing me too and I'm pushing him," said Green. "So yeah, it's an opportunity to show what I can do, but at the same time, I just can continue to control what I can control and just take it day by day and just continue to prepare like I'm starting."
