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 Clips
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.
The Browns are building a new stadium in Brook Park and the process will take a step forward on Thursday.
The team will hold a groundbreaking ceremony to commemorate the official start of construction of their future home. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Ohio Governor Mike DeWine will join Browns owner Jimmy Haslam for one panel discussion as part of the event with General Manager Andrew Berry, head coach Todd Monken and linebacker Carson Schwesinger taking part in another one.
Plans for the stadium call for a dome and a capacity of 67,500 for Browns game. The cost is estimated at $2.6 billion with the Haslam family set to contribute $1.755 billion and the rest of the funding coming from state and municpal sources.
The stadium is projected to be ready for the start of the 2029 season.
The Browns did not make any public pronouncements about their quarterback depth chart after last week’s minicamp practices, but it appears they have started to put one together behind the scenes.
Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com reports that Deshaun Watson came out of the minicamp as the favorite to be the team’s starting quarterback in Week 1. Watson and Shedeur Sanders both got first-team work in those practices, but Watson reportedly wound up with more reps with the starters.
Watson did not play at all in 2025 after tearing his Achilles, but he has a lot more experience than Sanders, Dillon Gabriel or rookie Taylen Green and that appears to be carrying a lot of weight for the Browns.
The team is installing a new offense under head coach Todd Monken and Watson has a longer history of learning different schemes over the course of his career. The rest of the Browns’ offense is also skewing young and the team values his ability to get those players in the right spots.
There’s about six weeks left in the offseason program and Sanders will have a chance to change the outlook, but Cabot writes that the second-year player “will have to dazzle the coaching staff to land atop the depth chart heading into training camp.”
The Saints are meeting with a potential addition to their secondary on Tuesday.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that free agent cornerback Martin Emerson is visiting the team.
Emerson was a 2022 third-round pick by the Browns and he missed the 2025 season after tearing his Achilles during training camp. He started 34 of the 51 regular season and playoff games he played while in Cleveland.
Emerson had 204 tackles, four interceptions, a sack, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery in that action.
The Saints drafted defensive backs Lorenzo Styles and TJ Hall. Kool-Aid McKinstry, Quincy Riley, and Isaac Yiadom are their top returning corners.
With the 10th overall pick acquired from the Bengals in the Dexter Lawrence trade, the Giants selected tackle Francis Mauioga. There’s a chance he wouldn’t have been available.
Via Jori Epstein of Yahoo Sports, two NFC teams tried to trade up to No. 9 with the Browns.
Cleveland had moved down from No. 6 to No. 9, in a trade that allowed the Chiefs to move up and select cornerback Mansoor Delane.
The Browns didn’t get an offer that made them abandon their chance to take tackle Spencer Fano in the ninth spot, but the effort made by the unnamed NFC teams underscores the risk of acquiring a pick before it’s on the clock. Two NFC teams were speculating on who the Giants planned to select, and they were trying to beat them to him.
Just like the Eagles did, when jumping from No. 23 to No. 20, one spot in front of the Steelers, for receiver Makai Lemon.
That’s how the draft works. Teams want who they want, and they’ll often move up to get him before someone else can. In the end, the Giants didn’t get leapfrogged. But two other teams in their conference tried.
The Browns are signing fullback Michael Burton, Tony Grossi of TheLandonDemand.com.
Burton, 34, spent the past two seasons in Denver.
In 2025, he played 16 percent of the offensive snaps in 17 games. He is also a core special teams player, seeing action on 62 percent of the Broncos’ special teams snaps last season.
Burton entered the NFL in 2015 as a fifth-round selection of the Lions.
In 10 seasons, Burton has appeared in 147 games with six different teams. He has played 1,369 offensive snaps and 1,814 on special teams in his career.
Todd Monken used a fullback on 41 percent of the Ravens’ offensive snaps last season.
The Browns selected wide receivers with two of their first three draft picks, but General Manager Andrew Berry said that isn’t going to change Jerry Jeudy’s role in the offense.
Berry took KC Concepcion with the team’s second first-round pick and then added Denzel Boston early in the second round, which he explained as moves that were made to complement Jeudy and will have “zero impact” on the veteran’s status in Cleveland.
“He’s our bell cow,” Berry said, via Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com. “With receiver rooms, you can have maybe a ball dominant player or you can essentially build a basketball team with different skill sets. We prefer the second approach. Now don’t get me wrong. I’ll take Calvin Johnson if he’s out there, but we feel like we have a nice well-rounded room with speed, [yards after catch], contested-catch ability, separation. So we’re really pleased with the youth and talent in that group.”
Jeudy and Cedric Tillman were the only Browns wideouts to catch more than 20 passes last season, so there was plenty of room to upgrade the position group without cutting into Jeudy’s role at the top of the depth chart. If Concepcion and Boston make a quick transition to the NFL, it should also help the Browns’ eternal struggle to find consistent production from their quarterbacks.
