I’ve got a theory about the Browns’ quarterback competition. It’s a simple one, which is roughly the limit of my cognitive ability.
It goes back to a clip that emerged early in the offseason program. The quarterbacks were doing a basic drill. Catch the snap, fake a pitch, make the drop into passing position, and throw the ball. Three times each.
Deshaun Watson did it crisply and cleanly. For Shedeur Sanders, it was lackadaisical, especially with the fake pitch.
Shedeur is a gamer. He performs when it counts. He has yet to embrace the process of checking various boxes in practice. And, in my opinion, new Browns coach Todd Monken is trying his damnedest to get Shedeur to do that.
And so, early in the offseason, the indications were that Watson had emerged as the leader for the QB1 role. Near the end, it seemed that Shedeur was making progress.
My guess — and it’s just a guess — is that, at some point, Monken explained to Shedeur that he can’t wait until the games to flip the switch. He needs to earn the right to have that opportunity by doing all of the little things when it’s not a live situation. If that’s what happened, it may have worked.
The test will be training camp. Every day, every practice, every rep. Focus, effort, repeat. Along the way, Shedeur will become better prepared to perform when it’s time to do so.
Watson will have a say in the process, too. If Shedeur does everything well, Watson will have to do it even better.
But that’s the key. Full commitment to the process of learning, and executing, Monken’s offense.
Of course, if Shedeur does it well enough to win the job, the challenge becomes doing it well enough to hold the job beyond 2026. The quarterback door in Cleveland has been revolving for years; as much as the team would like for it to stop spinning, they need someone who’ll play well enough, and win enough games, to get them to not keep looking for the next name to go on the back of the jersey that ran out of space a long time ago.
Shedeur has shown he can be good. Monken’s goal will be to get Shedeur to make the full commitment to being great. Which means ditching any traces of a Brett Favre-style mindset of not caring about anything but the game and caring deeply about everything else.
