Browns Clips
With head coach Todd Monken saying the Browns’ quarterback competition will continue into training camp, second-year signal-caller Shedeur Sanders will have the chance to show what he can do with pads on.
As Browns minicamp comes to a close this week, Monken told reporters that he’s seen improvement in a key area for the young QB.
“I just think he’s doing a better job — I think he’s being more decisive,” Monken said, via Daryl Ruiter of 92.3 The Fan. “Now, it’s easy to say [right now], we’re not in pads. It just feels like he’s making quicker decisions. The ball’s coming out of his hands, which he’s going to have to do. Not that he doesn’t have playmaking ability, because he does. But his ability to process quicker and get the ball out of his hands and eliminate lost yards, plays is going to be huge.
“He has to be able to stack plays and score, which is ultimately the No. 1 thing to do.”
Sanders did have some issues with holding the ball for too long as a rookie, finishing the season having taken 23 sacks in his eight games with seven starts. That works out to a sack rate of 9.79 percent.
Sanders completed 56.6 percent of his throws for 1,400 yards with seven touchdowns and 10 interceptions in 2025.
We’ll see what the competition between Sanders and Deshaun Watson brings once the Browns get to training camp. But Monken has said multiple times this week that he feels like both quarterbacks are capable of playing winning football in 2026.
Browns safety Ronnie Hickman is officially under contract for the 2026 season.
The Browns announced today that Hickman has signed his restricted free agent tender.
Realistically, that was the only option: Hickman could have signed with another team only before April 17, which was the deadline for restricted free agents to sign elsewhere. Once that deadline passed without Hickman signing, it was the Browns or no one.
The tender will pay Hickman $5.8 million for 2026 and he will become an unrestricted free agent after the season. If a team had signed Hickman to an offer sheet, the Browns would have had the choice of either matching the other team’s offer, or taking that team’s second-round draft pick.
Originally an undrafted rookie out of Ohio State in 2023, Hickman has played three years for the Browns and started all 17 games last year.
Jimmy Haslam gave up on Deshaun Watson 15 months ago when the Browns owner called the team’s signing of the quarterback “a big swing and miss.” After playing only 19 games in four seasons, Watson is entering the final year of his contract, competing with Shedeur Sanders for the starting job.
A reporter asked Watson on Wednesday about Haslam’s “swing-and-miss” comment, and the three-time Pro Bowler made clear he hasn’t given up on himself.
“One of my favorite baseball players that I’ve been watching is Bryce Harper,” Watson said, via Chris Easterling of the Akron Beacon Journal. “Sometimes he swings, but he stands back up and he gets another opportunity and he hits a home run. So you never know what the opportunity might show up, and that’s what I have right now.”
Watson hasn’t played since Oct. 20, 2024, when he tore his Achilles tendon against the Bengals. He tore it again a few months later.
He returned to practice last season, but the Browns never activated him from the reserve/PUP list.
Watson lost 11 games to a suspension in 2022 and 11 games to shoulder injuries in 2023.
“I could say that now I’m fully healthy, ready to go,” Watson said. “This last year I was able to conquer that. Then, I’d just say I haven’t been 100 percent since the Tennessee game [in Week 3] in ’23.”
Watson has not made the Pro Bowl since 2020 when he was with the Texans. Houston sat him in 2021 before trading him to the Browns in 2022.
Browns head coach Todd Monken said multiple times this offseason that he hoped to decide on a starting quarterback by the end of the team’s spring practices, but he said this week that no determination has been made.
That means Deshaun Watson and Shedeur Sanders will continue to make their case for the job when the team gets to training camp this summer. On Wednesday, Sanders declined to say where he feels things stand at this point in the process.
“I don’t think I’m a judge. I’m not a judge,” Sanders said.
Sanders said that he understands the outside focus is on who will win the job, but that he’s paying attention to other things as he prepares for his second NFL season.
“That’s nothing I’m focused on,” Sanders said. “I’m focused on developing as a player, doing everything, getting as comfortable as I can in the offense and the scheme and playing with confidence. That’s all I’m really looking for and trying to improve every day.”
Sanders said that he will continue with that mindset and that things will “fall into place” at some point ahead of the regular schedule.
Running back Quinshon Judkins was a member of the Browns’ impressive 2025 rookie class.
But his first season was cut short when he suffered a fractured fibula and dislocated ankle in December.
But Judkins has been participating in Cleveland’s offseason program, and head coach Todd Monken delivered a positive update on his progress this week.
“It feels like he’s got his confidence back, his explosion,” Monken said in his Tuesday minicamp press conference. “We’ll just see when he gets the pads on, but [he] looks good.”
Judkins rushed for 827 yards with seven touchdowns and caught 26 passes for 171 yards as a rookie.
The Browns wrapped up their draft class signings, getting first-round wide receiver KC Concepcion under contract, Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports.
Concepcion, the 24th overall pick in April’s draft, signed a fully guaranteed four-year, $20 million deal.
In 13 games at Texas A&M last season, Concepcion made 61 receptions for 919 yards and nine touchdowns. He also ran for 75 yards and a touchdown on 10 carries and scored two touchdowns on punt returns, averaging 18.2 yards on 25 returns.
He transferred to A&M after two seasons at North Carolina State.
Concepcion joins a wide receivers room that includes Jerry Jeudy, Denzel Boston and Cedric Tillman.
Long-time Browns offensive lineman Joel Bitonio announced his retirement on Tuesday, after 12 NFL seasons — all in Cleveland. And, as Bitonio recounted some of the things he learned from various veterans over the years, he mentioned one specific teammate who got to town when Bitonio did.
“I was drafted the same year as Johnny Manziel,” Bitonio said. “And we actually roomed together. I learned some things not to do from him.”
It’s funny now. It wasn’t at the time. The Browns ultimately wasted a first-round pick on a player who never took his job seriously. He was released after only two seasons, with eight starts and a 2-6 record.
Bitonio, a second-round pick in 2014, made it a decade longer. He appeared in and started 178 regular-season games, with seven Pro Bowls, three years as a second-team All-Pro, and two as a first-earn All-Pro.
Browns head coach Todd Monken has said that he would prefer to have a starting quarterback named by the end of the offseason program.
It turns out that’s not going to be the case.
Monken told reporters in his Tuesday press conference that he’s not planning on naming a QB1 by the end of the club’s minicamp this week.
“I really don’t know. I’m not going to name a No. 1 ... chances are, I will not,” Monken said. “Now, once we get to the fall, we’ll have to dissect the reps how we see fit. I just don’t see it after the way Shedeur’s played and Deshaun’s played, they’ve both played well enough to earn the right to compete to start.”
That means the competition will continue into training camp, where each player will have the opportunity to separate himself.
Tuesday’s session was a good one for both, Monken said.
"[Sanders] did a nice job today. He’s been getting better and better with each practice day,” Monken said. no"And I thought Deshaun did some good things today. So, I thought they both functioned at a high level. We had a couple of pre-snap issues. But I thought they both functioned at a high level today.”
Generally, Monken said he’s been pleased with what he’s seen from Sanders and Watson during the offseason program.
“First of all, it’s been great to watch them progress,” Monken said. “The sad part is in two days, they go away for five or six weeks — that’s what sucks, because you just start to get a little bit of momentum, you’re stacking plays. You’re seeing some things you really like. We’ve got to do a great job as a staff for, when they get back, picking up where they left off.
“But, it’s been fun to watch those guys compete. The whole room, they’re really smart guys, highly competitive. And they’ve come a long way. I’m excited about the room.”
While Dillon Gabriel — who will now wear No. 6 after Jared Verse came in for No. 8 — and rookie Taylen Green on the roster, the competition in actuality is between Sanders and Watson. We’ll see how things change once pads come on during training camp.
There are no longer two players wearing No. 8 at Browns practices.
Snapshots of quarterback Dillon Gabriel at Tuesday’s practice shows that he’s wearing No. 6. Both Gabriel and newly acquired edge rusher Jared Verse were wearing No. 8 last week, but word was that Gabriel would change numbers and leave his former one for Verse.
There were no unassigned numbers from 0-19 on the Browns’ roster, but linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah will not play this season as he continues to deal with a neck injury and that left No. 6 as the obvious spot for Gabriel now that No. 8 is not an option for him.
With the number issue settled, Gabriel can resume his bid to secure a spot on the 53-man roster. Deshaun Watson, Shedeur Sanders and sixth-round pick Taylen Green are the other players in the position group.
Joel Bitonio, a 2014 second-round pick of the Browns who spent his entire 12-year NFL career in Cleveland, has announced his retirement.
Bitonio, a two-time first-team All-Pro guard, announced his retirement with an article on the Browns’ website in which he said he always saw Cleveland as his permanent football home.
“Truthfully, as time passed and my career kept going, there was never a point where I could envision myself in a different uniform,” Bitonio wrote. “Wearing that orange helmet and being part of this franchise – from getting drafted to signing three contracts – I felt a loyalty to the Browns, and it gave me a sense of pride to represent a fan base who is consistently loyal to us. I started the job here, and once I got to a certain point, I knew I wanted to finish the job in Cleveland.”
Bitonio was a consistent and reliable presence on the Browns’ offensive line, and he credited older offensive linemen in Cleveland who set the standard he lived up to.
“I remember during my rookie season we were in the meeting room, and someone mentioned Joe Thomas had never missed a snap in eight seasons. That notion blew me away. Then Alex Mack, who was in his sixth season, said he had also not missed a snap. Mitchell Schwartz piped up and added he hadn’t missed a snap in his first two seasons,” Bitonio wrote. “And that set the standard for me. You’re an NFL offensive lineman; you come in, you play when you can play, you don’t miss any snaps. So I made that my mindset. . . . I played 6,481 consecutive offensive plays beginning from the 2017 season and lasting through the 2023 season.”
Bitonio also played every snap last season, which was the last year on his contract. He is technically a free agent, but there’s no doubt in his mind that he’s a Brown for life.
