LONDON — As the Cleveland Browns prepared for the only full practice of their overseas journey ahead of their NFL International Series game against the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday, new starting rookie quarterback Dillon Gabriel threw passes toward the end zone while Joe Flacco, the veteran passer who was replaced by Gabriel this week, mostly looked on from behind the drill.
Near midfield, rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders directed traffic in a different kind of passing drill. Ahead of the fifth game of the season, this session on a different continent was constructed like the previous four in-season Friday practices: starters in the red zone, with practice-squad players and others not in the Sunday plans throwing behind.
Turnovers and overall ineffectiveness forced Browns coach Kevin Stefanski to announce a quarterback change earlier this week. The 1-3 Browns are desperate for a spark and any kind of assist for their defense, which has played at a high level.
Stefanski doesn’t fully blame the 40-year-old Flacco — nor should he — for the offensive failures, but the sixth-year head coach thought a move had to be made. It came earlier than anyone planned or anticipated, but it’s the only change for now, and it keeps Sanders as the third quarterback and a game-day inactive who’s only eligible for action if the other two get hurt.
All along, some thought the inevitable move from the wise old guy in Flacco to the 24-year-old lefty in Gabriel would come with a complete shakeup of the quarterback depth chart. And had it come later in the season, maybe it would have.
But thus far, it’s brought no change anywhere but the top. Stefanski was clear in both of his media sessions this week that Gabriel is the starter and Flacco is the backup.
In an interview with ESPN Cleveland ahead of the Browns’ Week 4 game at Detroit, Sanders said he was “ready to play right now” and, “I know if you see the quarterback play in the league right now, I know I’m capable of doing better than that.”
Clearly, the Browns don’t agree. But no one involved with the team will directly say why. One explanation matches the thinking for making the change: Cleveland is reeling but far from dead in an AFC North that has three teams set to start quarterbacks this weekend who began the season as backups. With just a little bit of help in the scoring department, the defense might be able to drag the Browns into eventual playoff contention.
Another explanation is the timing — or at least the calendar. With Cleveland set to play its second of three straight away from home and the organization having made a tepid but semi-full commitment to Flacco in August, the folks in charge are still thinking more about now than they are about the franchise’s uncertain future.
The team always viewed Sanders as a developmental prospect worth a fifth-round shot, but not as a real immediate option. During an interview on the team-produced broadcast of the late-August preseason finale, Browns general manager Andrew Berry compared Sanders’ transition from four years in his college offense to Cleveland’s offense as someone who was “fluent in English and now you have to learn Mandarin.”
Later that day, Sanders took five sacks against a group of Los Angeles Rams defenders who mostly didn’t make the regular-season roster. He was lifted from the end of the preseason finale in favor of journeyman quarterback Tyler Huntley, a late addition to Cleveland’s summer roster as injury insurance. Huntley led the Browns’ backups to the game-winning field goal in the final minutes while Sanders watched from the sideline.
Shedeur Sanders struggled mightily in his last game action against the Rams in the preseason. (Jason Miller / Getty Images)
No one remembers the winner in preseason games, and Stefanski never gave a logical explanation for why he didn’t let Sanders get the experience of conducting a live two-minute drill that day. Back in Northeast Ohio earlier this week, the head coach was asked why Flacco, not Sanders, would serve as the No. 2 on Sunday.
“Joe’s the backup,” was Stefanski’s full answer.
On Thursday, Browns offensive coordinator Tommy Rees was asked if there was any consideration given to making Sanders the No. 2 quarterback with Gabriel’s promotion.
“I just feel like Joe’s going to stay the No. 2 right now and has done a lot to prepare and be ready to go,” Rees said.
Are the Browns trying to answer questions about Sanders through their non-answers? Maybe. Stefanski has consistently said Cleveland’s plans for developing its rookie quarterbacks, which started with altered practice itineraries as far back as May’s rookie minicamp, also included extra post-practice opportunity periods throughout August and even into the regular season.
It’s clear — and understandable — that Stefanski has enough on his plate trying to get something out of his starter and doesn’t really want to talk about his No. 3 quarterback.
After the Browns trimmed their 90-man offseason roster to the regular-season size of 53 at the end of August, they added quarterback Bailey Zappe to the practice squad. Zappe spent more than half of last season with the Browns on the practice squad and active roster, then started the season finale. Zappe went to training camp with the Kansas City Chiefs and returned to the Browns, despite Cleveland having gone through August with six quarterbacks on its roster and having Flacco, who has 18 years of NFL experience, and the injured Deshaun Watson, who has nine years of experience, in its daily meetings.
If there were any internal faith in Sanders’ ability to play early this season if called upon, the Browns wouldn’t need a fourth quarterback on their practice field.
If any team believed Sanders was ready to play, then he wouldn’t have fallen to the fifth round, where Cleveland moved up 22 spots to select him at No. 144 despite taking Gabriel 50 picks earlier in the third round. Universally, pre-draft experts graded Sanders as a first- or second-round talent, with some ranking him as high as the top 15 regardless of position in the 2025 draft class.
There were lots of reasons cited for his fall, including perceived maturity issues, his struggles against the pass rush in college and reported bad interviews with multiple teams during the pre-draft process.
The Browns drafted him anyway, even though the front office had spent months eying Gabriel as its best rookie option, assuming it focused on filling other needs earlier in the draft. With Watson out indefinitely and still carrying salary-cap numbers of more than $35 million this year and $80 million in 2026, the Browns chose two cheap veterans, Kenny Pickett and Flacco, then drafted two quarterbacks.
Though Pickett took the first reps of the summer, he suffered a hamstring injury on the fourth day of camp. Pickett never participated in a full practice or a preseason game in the weeks that followed, and he was traded to the Las Vegas Raiders on Aug. 25.
That move was viewed as a further endorsement of Gabriel as next in line. Though there were a few days in August during which the rookies would split reps with the No. 2 and No. 3 offenses or alternate turns in various competition periods, Gabriel had been ahead of Sanders since the spring. And though Sanders started the preseason opener and had two touchdown passes against the Carolina Panthers, he missed the second week with an injury and struggled mightily in the aforementioned third preseason game, which always loomed as his last action for the foreseeable future.
Meanwhile, Gabriel had multiple practice showings over the first few weeks of camp that can only be described as awful, but rebounded later and was excellent against backups over the final two preseason games. The Browns view Gabriel as a quick processor who is obsessed with the playbook. Stefanski keeps saying the Browns view Gabriel as ready to play in the NFL because he played six college seasons in three programs, but he doesn’t say the same about Sanders, a four-year starter at two colleges.
Dillon Gabriel, whom the Browns drafted 50 picks ahead of Sanders, received work with the No. 1 unit at times during camp, while Sanders never did. (Nick Cammett / Getty Images)
Stefanski announced Gabriel as the new starter on Wednesday. On the same day, reporters from ESPN Cleveland and other outlets approached Sanders in the same location where he had given an interview the previous week and said he believed he was ready to play. But after ESPN analyst and former NFL head coach Rex Ryan had publicly criticized Sanders for his comments, questioned his study habits and said Sanders should stop talking, this time Sanders did not answer questions verbally.
Instead, he pantomimed his responses. The clip went viral — as the previous week’s interview had — and some viewed it as Sanders trying to take the spotlight away from Gabriel. Sanders has talked often about knowing he’s in the limelight and that his words normally go viral, so what came next was another round of talking heads screaming about Sanders and another set of headlines involving a third-string quarterback.
Asked Friday for his thoughts on Sanders going viral on the day of the starting quarterback announcement, Gabriel said he had “none. I don’t want to speak for anyone but for me. It’s like, ‘Hey, we’re a team. We do this together as a unit. We can only control what we can control.’ I don’t want to speak for anyone in particular.”
The Browns signed up for this. All of this.
They knew of Sanders’ fame and college accomplishments, and they spent months studying and meeting multiple quarterback options in the 2025 draft class, not just the two they selected. Sanders showed off his arm talent and accuracy throughout training camp in a promising overall performance, but even with Pickett and Gabriel both being limited by injury, Stefanski never gave Sanders a single rep with the No. 1 offense — and never gave a full answer when asked why he didn’t.
When a report surfaced last month that the Baltimore Ravens intended to draft Sanders but were asked by his family to let him go to a place where he could potentially play earlier, Sanders said he didn’t remember anything before the draft and didn’t want to talk about it.
“(My job) is to come here every day and learn,” Sanders said. “Learn from the (quarterback) room. Learn from everything every day. Just move forward. Every day I’m alive, I get better in some capacity. Just thankful for this time and being able to watch Joe, being able to watch Dillon get through their process.”
Asked again Friday by an international media corps if Sanders would eventually have a chance to become the No. 2 quarterback, Stefanski answered that Flacco is the Browns’ backup and Sanders is the emergency option.
“All of our players — and I include Shedeur in this — are working extremely hard,” Stefanski said. “We just finished our period after practice that we do every single day, just finished a red zone seven-on-seven period where Shedeur and the rest of the younger guys are working on 10 (bonus) reps.
“So, he needs to continue to do exactly what he’s been doing and continue to do what all these guys are doing, which is just keep working.”
(Top photo: Mike Mulholland / Getty Images)