BEREA, Ohio — As the Cleveland Browns’ 11-on-11 drills wrapped, Shedeur Sanders finished his final drive and beelined to offensive coordinator Tommy Rees.
The fifth-round rookie quarterback fielded an imaginary snap and dropped back. He extended his arm as if to confirm the line of vision expected next.
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The rookie quarterback was animated Tuesday afternoon as his coach shared the clearest path to improvement.
But what happened after the coach-player interaction was even more interesting.
While Rees and Sanders were recapping the performance of the Browns’ currently last-to-get-snaps quarterback, the three players competing against him in an unusually wide-open quarterback battle had assembled on the sideline between the two practice fields in anticipation of a film review with an on-field projector.
Eighteen-year veteran Joe Flacco knelt. The 20th overall pick of the 2022 NFL Draft, Kenny Pickett, stood ready to go with helmet still fastened. And Sanders’ fellow 2025 draft classmate Dillon Gabriel — whom the Browns selected in the third round, 50 picks before Sanders — stationed himself right in front of the projector screen.
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As Sanders arrived, Flacco pulled himself up from the kneel.
He was ready to help.
His attention directed toward Sanders, Flacco illustrated a wrist flick and a rollout; a dropback and a windup. Coach-led film review was in motion, but why rely on just one voice to weigh in? Flacco, despite his recent insistence that as a competitor he’s not looking primarily to mentor, didn’t leave the teaching to his coaches. And Sanders, despite already breaking down his latest reps with his coordinator, wasn’t content to stop learning there.
“I’d be dumb, I’d be a fool to not get insight from somebody that’s had success over all the years that he’s had,” Sanders said after practice ended. “I never feel, I would say, full. I would say I’m always hungry.”
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The Browns’ four competing quarterbacks all looked hungry in their first mandatory minicamp practice on Tuesday. But they also looked surprisingly jovial and well-adjusted in relating to one another, alternating the order in which they took drills and the number of snaps they received.
Competitive? Sure, the quarterbacks fed that energy. But combative they weren’t. The rookies showed deference to Flacco and Pickett, who clearly led the group even on a day when Flacco had “fewer reps today … obviously on purpose,” per head coach Kevin Stefanski, who leads the charge to evaluate the relative merits of the Browns’ four healthy quarterbacks (Deshaun Watson is in meetings but sidelined with injury).
Joe Flacco (left) and Shedeur Sanders share a moment during Browns minicamp Tuesday. (Photo by Nick Cammett/Getty Images)
(Nick Cammett via Getty Images)
Flacco appeared to approach his coach-imposed limitations with the mindset Sanders has applied to his seemingly-low-on-the-depth-chart opportunity.
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“You could view things as you not getting reps in a negative way or you could view it as, ‘OK, when it’s my time to get out there, let’s be proactive and let’s get warm, let’s get going,’” Sanders said. “Nobody cares how many reps you got whenever you get in the game. Nobody cares if you took a snap before.
“Everybody cares about production.”
How Browns are splitting reps, attention in crowded room
After a roughly 11:30 a.m. stretching period, four Browns quarterbacks joined their team’s running backs for footwork drills.
Pickett was the first quarterback to cycle through the drill that challenged ball security, precision and agility. Three running backs preceded Flacco, Sanders following, and later Gabriel after a host more backs. Pickett again took the first quarterback swing on the reverse run through obstacles, though this time Sanders let Gabriel and several running backs who’d gone later than him jump in line.
Quarterback-center exchanges, routes on air to running backs, and then routes on air to receivers and tight ends followed.
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A pass from Sanders to rookie running back Dylan Sampson hit the running back low, but Sampson caught it.
In individual drills, the two veteran QBs continued to work with the top targets. Pickett and Flacco threw simultaneous routes before the rookies alternated. Even on the drills favoring the offense, some balls were batted by defenders. The highlight of 7-on-7 periods was a deep completion from Sanders to undrafted free-agent receiver Gage Larvadain, who beat the defenders asked to take the final-string snaps for a touchdown.
Did Sanders’ later-rep chances position him against easier competition than Gabriel, who faced first- and second-team defenders on Tuesday?
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The Oregon product wasn’t losing sleep over the learn-on-the-job task being asked of him. Mastering a playbook is about “progression and regression,” he said.
“How can you create value right away today?” Gabriel explained his approach. “Everyone in this game sees themselves as starters and that belief of self is why a lot of guys are in the NFL. Failure creates growth — but we are in a production-based business, so it’s hard for people to balance that.”
Gabriel demonstrated some of that growth in red-zone drills when he hit second-year receiver Jamari Thrash in the back corner of the end zone.
“Man-beating play, but to be able to create leverage and win in zone coverage, it allows it to be a lot easier on my end,” Gabriel said. “And then him making an outstanding catch.”
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Browns coaches hope an increase in snaps (thanks to running “two-spot” simultaneous drills that teams without a quarterback competition often don’t facilitate) and physical demands prepare their team for the gauntlet that will be the AFC North, even if most minicamp drills won’t accurately resemble the speed or physicality of game play.
What will it take to nourish comfort in uncomfortable pockets? The Browns scripted Tuesday periods for 7-on-7 drills, 11-on-11 drills and a modified 7-on-7 period with offensive linemen running games and stunts to simulate pocket play despite not actually integrating all 11 players.
“It’s playing on time, it’s understanding spatial awareness, it’s feeling where the guards are going to be, where the tackles could be,” Stefanski explained the drill’s purpose. “It’s finding lanes to throw. You have a shallow cross coming from left to right, you can find that lane and the B-gap and the C-gap as it moves across. So just trying to give them a little visual.
“It’s valuable.”
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Key goal of minicamp: develop the drafted rookie QB duo
Tuesday, Cleveland’s quarterback goals heavily emphasized developing its rookie quarterbacks. There seemed to be a tacit understanding that the team knows what it has in 40-year-old Flacco. It knows much of what it has in Pickett, and perhaps much of what it will learn before full-pads practices.
Club brass knows how far any rookies, and especially rookie quarterbacks, have to come.
So 89 days removed from the Browns’ season opener wasn’t the time to settle the Week 1 depth chart or make final decisions. The practice script seemed geared instead to lift all boats by solidifying the rookies’ foundation.
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Gabriel valued that approach.
“You have to have a process behind it to be able to create consistent results,” he said. “And I think whether it’s a microwave mentality or that Amazon lifestyle of wanting it right away, sometimes it’s just not the case. So being able to have a process, stick to it, continue to listen to your coaches and try to get better that way — that’s what I want to do.”
He knows, after 64 college games across six seasons and three colleges, that adjusting to a new system takes time and is better done well than immediately. The 18,722 yards, 155 touchdowns and 32 picks he threw across UCF, Oklahoma and Oregon resulted from his patience.
“Amazon Prime, you get on your phone and you order it, it’s there to you right away,” Gabriel said. “I’m not saying we should wait seven days, but I’m just saying sometimes there’s some work within that or a microwave just heating your food up in 30 seconds rather than cutting it up, seeing the process of it [where] you learn more.”
Sanders also spoke about the benefit of patience, from the spiritual growth he said he’s cultivated since the Browns selected him in the fifth round of the draft to the mindset he is adopting as he watches first-team snaps from the sideline.
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“My goal is to be the best teammate and to be as polished as I can be in every aspect,” Sanders said. “I view things as: I got time. I got time to be able to grow and mature and be able to understand the ins and outs of the defenses and be able to get the good insight from the vets in the room.”
Growth at the college level molded a 50-game college career during which Sanders completed 70.1% of passes for 14,347 yards, 135 touchdowns and 27 interceptions in four total seasons across Jackson State and Colorado.
At the NFL level, it could yield a professional backup or starter role — goals that could materialize this season or later on.
For now, Sanders is listening. He’s listening to his coaches and his teammates, the veteran quarterbacks and to his intuition. Earlier this week, he was listening in conversations with pastors — and, he says, in conversation with God.
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The conversation prompted Sanders to tweet at 1:57 a.m. Tuesday: “It’s a spiritual war going on. Trust in GOD.” He slept with his flashlight on, Sanders said.
Then he returned to another kind of light, the spotlight, on Tuesday — sharing the attention quarterbacks naturally receive with Flacco, Pickett and Gabriel.
The rookies jabbed at Flacco for his age, listened to their veteran counterparts on red-zone perspective and footwork alterations, and even collected input from defenders on how they interpreted the quarterbacks’ moves.
Edge rusher Myles Garrett praised Gabriel for running the offense with composure before zooming out, as is franchise standard right now, to the whole room.
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“All of them look pretty calm, just going through their checks and going through their calls,” Garrett said. “Making the plays they need to make, not doing too much right now. They’ll have time to continue to display their talents.
“Continue to earn the trust of your teammates and coaches, and I think they’ll be able to open up the game.”
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