In the five years since the NIL era obliterated the facade that college football players are there for college, not much has been said about grade-point averages or graduation rates. So it’s nice to get a periodic reminder that, at some level, the college part of things still matters.
Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders returned to Colorado on Saturday to get his degree.
Via Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Sanders walked the stage at graduation to secure a degree in sociology.
Sanders left the school a year ago to enter the NFL draft. Now entering his second season, Sanders is competing with Deshaun Watson to be the starting quarterback.
As a rookie, Sanders started seven games. He won three games for the Browns, who otherwise went 2-8 last season.
Browns Clips
The Browns have hired longtime NFL executive Trent Baalke in a “consultant-like capacity,” Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports reports.
The Jaguars fired Baalke as General Manager in the 2025 offseason, and he was out of the NFL last season. Baalke served in that role for four seasons in Jacksonville.
He was also General Manager for the 49ers from 2011-16.
During Baalke’s tenure in Jacksonville, the Jaguars went 25-43 with head coaches Urban Meyer and Doug Pederson, along with interim coach Darrell Bevell.
Baalke, 62, began his NFL run in 1998 as a scout for the Jets.
In addition to his time with the 49ers and Jaguars, Baalke has also worked for the Commanders.
One of the top unsigned veteran free agents in the league has lined up a visit for early next week.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that tight end David Njoku is scheduled to visit the Chargers on Monday. Njoku was No. 76 on PFT’s list of this year’s top free agents and is one of a handful of players on the list who has yet to find a home for 2026.
Njoku, who also visited the Ravens last month, has spent his entire nine-year career with the Browns. He had 33 catches for 293 yards and four touchdowns in 12 games last season and has 384 catches for 4,062 yards and 34 touchdowns for his career.
The Chargers currently have Oronde Gadsden and Charlie Kolar as the top tight ends on their depth chart.
Offensive tackle Dawand Jones and the Browns have come to agreement on a revised contract for the 2026 season.
Jones was set to make $3.674 million for the coming season after hitting escalators in his deal, but he has agreed to take a pay cut in exchange for having most of his salary guaranteed. Tom Pelissero of NFL Media reports that Jones is now set to make $1.5 million with $1.15 million in guaranteed money.
Jones is in the final year of the four-year contract he signed after being drafted in the fourth round in 2023.
The Browns drafted Spencer Fano and traded for Tytus Howard this offseason, so Jones may be ticketed for a reserve role after starting 20 of the 24 games he played in his first two seasons.
Shilo Sanders, the brother of Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders, created a stir in recent days by making a misogynistic remark about longtime Browns reporter Mary Kay Cabot, and by following it not with an apology but an explanation that only reinforced his misguided views.
Browns coach Todd Monken is doing his best to steer clear of the controversy.
Appearing Friday on 92.3 The Fan in Cleveland, Monken was asked whether he’ll be addressing the team about the potential problems that such matters can cause.
“That’s a man making a comment on social media,” Monken said. “That’s someone reporting something they believe. That’s their opinion. Fine, I’m — not my opinion, I didn’t say that. Our daily inner workings with the quarterbacks and the players is gonna mean more than what is said outside of there.
“Ultimately, do I believe that our players look at social media? Of course. Do I? Yes. I mean, do most of us? Yes, that’s the world we live in. But ultimately with the players, like, I think that has changed over the last few years of how do you get your players to deal with things that are being said about them, good or bad? How do you manage that? I think that is a real challenge, but ultimately like I said, if that’s gonna be what defines you, then you’re gonna struggle to be either the head coach, be an offensive coordinator, or be our quarterback.”
He’s right, although it would have been nice to hear him express an opinion that Shilo took his own opinions too far.
Monken’s broader message is that there will always be scrutiny of NFL players and coaches. Anyone who spends their time worrying about that won’t be in the best possible position to succeed.
“Someone told me years ago that if the president has a 55-percent approval rating, he’s killing it,” Monken said. “Well, I don’t know shit I’ll shoot for 60. . . . That’s part of what we do. It’s part of the scrutiny that comes with it.”
There’s a deeper message there, one that Monken probably hopes quarterback Shedeur Sanders will catch. Opinions on social media shouldn’t bother you. They shouldn’t bother your family members.
And there’s nothing to be gained by reacting to them.
On Thursday, the Browns held their official groundbreaking ceremony for the new Huntington Bank Field, which is currently slated to open for the 2029 season.
While commissioner Roger Goodell noted that the stadium could host a Super Bowl someday if the surrounding hotel infrastructure improves, we know the facility will be the home for Browns fans for the foreseeable future.
But will the average fan even be able to afford games in the new dome?
“Great question, and I can promise you, we have talked as much about keeping ‘affordable seats’ in the new stadium as anything else,” Browns co-owner Jimmy Haslam said at the ceremony, via Daryl Ruiter of 92.3 The Fan. “The Dawg Pound will have the exact same number of seats, but it’s going to be a way better experience. And we will have seats that are affordable, just like our seats are now. So, heavy heavy focus on making sure anybody that wants to — or almost anybody that wants to — comes to our games.”
Haslam effectively had to correct himself there because with any sporting event in 2026 and beyond, it’s highly unlikely that any fan who would want to come would be able to afford a face-value ticket. And that’s saying nothing of the PSL costs that are going to be paid by fans for the right to purchase season tickets, or whether or not fans find prices affordable now.
We’ll see how it plays out. But especially now that Haslam has said this, it’s absolutely fair for consumers to hold him accountable to it when ticket pricing plans roll out in the future.
As Shedeur Sanders and Deshaun Watson compete to be the starting quarterback of the Cleveland Browns, Shedeur’s brother took issue with news about the battle from the team’s recent voluntary minicamp.
More specifically, he took issue with the messenger.
Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer recently reported that Watson emerged from the minicamp as the favorite. She also expressed on Twitter this opinion about the situation: “I think they should declare [Watson] QB1 asap and let the 1st team offense start to cook. There’s no time to waste.”
The quote became the subject of an Instagram post. Shilo Sanders responded by saying: “Go make a sandwich Mary.”
Cabot, the winner of the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s 2025 Bill Nunn Jr. Award for long and distinguished contribution to pro football through coverage of the game, addressed Shilo’s comment during a visit with 92.3 The Fan in Cleveland.
“Well, let me just say about that that I really do believe that I have been an inspiration for lots of women and young girls to know that you can go out there and do a good job in a man’s world, and take on all of the — all of that that comes with that,” Cabot said. “And I know that there are so many women who have joined the football world, especially because of some of the things that I’ve been able to do over the years, and I’m happy about that and I know that will continue. And now we’ve got women in flag football, playing flag football all over the place, and I’m just happy that I have been able to help set the tone and open some doors in that way, and I know that will continue, and that’s just how I feel about that.”
Shilo didn’t apologize. Instead, he doubled down.
“If you’re gonna be a reporter, be a reporter and report facts,” Sanders said about Cabot on his Twitch channel. “Whenever you have your opinion, and your opinion is always something hateful to Shedeur, then it makes it seem like it’s something weird. Like it’s an agenda that you have going on.
“And there’s plenty of women in this field that take this serious and take reporting football serious and actually do homework and study the game and get the statistics right and get the news right. But with you it’s so much emotion that I don’t want you to make women look bad when it comes to reporting, because you don’t have the will to actually want to report real things that are going on.
“So it don’t even make sense. You wanna go talk about this and that in minicamp? They don’t even have all the receivers. How you gonna say, ‘Oh, this is what I think is gonna happen’? We don’t care what you think is gonna happen. Let Shedeur go practice. He don’t need to be going on Instagram and Twitter and stuff and always seeing you just bad mouth him.
“That’s what I got a problem with. You know what I’m saying? If it’s reported, it’s reported. You have facts, you have news. But when it comes to your opinion, you’ve been saying crazy things for the past — since he’s been there. So it’s like, just chill with that. Because it don’t make no sense, and it makes you look crazy like you don’t know what you’re talking about. And for all the women that actually take the time to go do their research and actually be real reporters and real journalists, then that’s gonna make them look bad, because you already know as a woman in this field of reporting football and sports, like, it’s hard. So don’t make it hard on everybody, just because you don’t feel like it. That’s all I gotta say about that.”
He probably should have said less. A lot less. And Shedeur and/or their father, Deion, should be saying something to Shilo about his own opinions and how he has communicated them.
Cabot has been covering the Browns for decades. Browns fans want to read her reports, and they want to know her opinions.
Obviously, Shilo wouldn’t have had anything to say if Cabot had expressed the opinion that Shedeur should be the starter. It’s just another example of a current cultural reality in which there’s an inclination to attack those who express opinions that the subject of them doesn’t like, in lieu of addressing the merits.
His video was very condescending. His comment on Twitter was blatantly misogynistic. And even though Shilo was speaking for himself and not Shedeur, it would be wise for Shedeur to tell his brother to apologize — and then to zip it.
In other words, Shilo should let Shedeur go practice. He doesn’t need to be going on Instagram and Twitter and stuff and seeing his brother say things his brother shouldn’t be saying.
Browns head coach Todd Monken isn’t ready to talk about a starting quarterback yet.
A report this week said that Deshaun Watson emerged from last week’s minicamp as the favorite to start over Shedeur Sanders and Dillon Gabriel once the Browns get to Week 1 of the regular season. During an appearance on 92.3 The Fan on Friday, Monken said his preference would be to have a starter in place when the team starts training camp while adding that he hasn’t seen enough at this point to make that kind of determination.
“I would love to have that,” Monken said. “I’m not there yet, so I can’t say that. We’ve been on the field 3 practices. . . . What I’ve seen after three days, that gives us a 40,000-foot view of where we’re at, but that can change once we get back on the field. There’s only so many reps you get, you’ve got to start to target towards who is gonna start opening day. That can still change. That can change, even if someone is gonna get two-thirds of the reps and someone’s getting one-third of reps because you’re still gonna play preseason games.”
Cleveland has never been to a Super Bowl. A Super Bowl could possibly come to Cleveland.
At Thursday’s groundbreaking ceremony for the Browns’ new stadium, Commissioner Roger Goodell opened the door to the possibility of the league’s premier event making an Ohio premiere.
“The stadium is clearly going to be suitable for a Super Bowl,” Goodell said, via Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “I think the real challenge is going to be how transformational this is here. The airport is important for us. Hotels are important for us. All of the facilities are the biggest challenge for hosting a Super Bowl now. We have probably close to 200,000 people coming in for a Super Bowl. It’s great for economic impact, but it’s hard for cities to be able to meet some of those requirements on the facilities. So that’s the biggest challenge.”
Hotel space may be the biggest challenge.
“I think the lowest we have is high 40s of hotels,” Goodell said. “And I don’t know what the number is here. I think it’s about half that, roughly. And it’s also the quality of hotels, but also the airport’s a really important issue. And I think the airport from what I understand is going to be part of the development here and part of that opportunity. So there’s a chance here for this to be the transformational type of project that converts and has more events that people need to come to and hotels start to develop. The airport expands and you get that kind of infrastructure.”
Here’s the problem with potentially doubling the number of hotels. If the area already justified that many hotels, they’d already exist. It’s a matter of basic economics, and an influx of 40 more hotels could eventually result in 40 of them going out of business.
That’s the biggest challenge for the cities that have stadiums good enough to host a Super Bowl. Everything else needs to be in place to absorb the event.
Former NFL quarterback P.J. Walker has announced his retirement.
Walker had been playing for the CFL’s Calgary Stampeders and the team announced on Thursday that he was stepping away from the game. Walker’s agent confirmed to 3DownNation.com that Walker is retiring.
Walker signed with the Colts in 2017 after going undrafted out of Temple and spent time on their practice squad for three years before starring in the XFL during the 2020 season. He returned to the NFL with the Panthers and made his first NFL start that year.
Walker would start seven times over three seasons in Carolina and he made two starts for the Browns in 2023. He was 185-of-339 for 2,135 yards, six touchdowns and 16 interceptions in 21 overall NFL appearances.
Calgary signed Walker after he was released by the Seahawks in 2024 and he appeared in 13 games for the team last season.
