Kevin Stefanski and Andrew Berry changed their quarterback plan when Shedeur Sanders slid to the fifth round. (TheLandOnDemand)
You must have an active subscription to read this story.
Click Here to subscribe Now!
Editor's note: Tony Grossi is a Cleveland Browns analyst for TheLandOnDemand.com and 850 ESPN Cleveland. He has covered the Browns since 1984.
What exactly is the Browns’ plan at quarterback?
I thought I knew. After their draft, I’m not sure.
That’s the problem.
After GM Andrew Berry made three trades and selected seven players, we still don’t see a clear plan to compete with the likes of franchise QBs Lamar Jackson and Joe Burrow in the AFC North, much less Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes in the AFC playoffs.
Throughout the offseason, I really thought the Browns formulated a decent plan on how to dig out from the failed Deshaun Watson experiment.
Setting the course
They made coaching changes at offensive coordinator and offensive line to set up a return to the Kevin Stefanski offense that worked well in 2023 – wide-zone blocking scheme, bigger commitment to the run game, multiple tight-end formations, and play-action passing.
With Watson accounting for $36 million on this year’s salary cap and more than $130 million thereafter, Berry had to be creative in building a temporary quarterback room.
He traded for former Pittsburgh first-round pick Kenny Pickett and his nominal rookie contract, and signed 2023 hero Joe Flacco to an affordable one-year deal. Stefanski then declared an open quarterback competition between Pickett and Flacco.
All of this made sense as the Browns embarked on the most comprehensive evaluation of a quarterback draft in the six years of the Berry-Stefanski partnership.
Owner Jimmy Haslam lifted the pressure to manufacture a franchise quarterback when he said they “weren’t going to force it … we’re going to be patient.”
Acknowledging the Browns had no chance to trade up for undisputed No. 1-ranked quarterback Cam Ward, Haslam said, “I think the message is if the right person's there, we're going to take him. If not, we'll figure it out for a year or two until we get the right person.”
And then came the draft
On each of the three days of the draft, Berry dropped a bombshell that affected the quarterback plan. The moves completely overshadowed some of Berry’s best player-picking as GM. They wrote the epitaph of his 2025 draft.
Day One: Berry traded the No. 2 overall pick – effectively two-way sensation Travis Hunter, the consensus No. 1 player in the draft – to drop down three spots and acquire an extra second-round pick and a 2026 first-round pick from Jacksonville.
This move underscored Haslam’s directive. Berry was laying the foundation to pursue the real long-term QB solution in the more talent-rich 2026 quarterback draft.
His selection of defensive tackle Mason Graham with the No. 5 overall pick then was a spot-on hit on the No. 1 need on defense.
Day Two: Berry took Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel with the 94th overall pick in the third round.
Everyone wondered how the Browns ranked the quarterback class. This selection rocked everyone’s already-shaken confidence in the Browns’ quarterback evaluation process.
Despite a prolific career over six years in three college programs – Central Florida, Oklahoma and Oregon – Gabriel was ranked in nobody’s top 100 players in the draft. He was rated a fourth- to sixth-round prospect. Analyst Dane Brugler of The Athletic wrote Gabriel “has a fighting chance to earn a backup role in the NFL.”
Further, Gabriel is a bad fit for the rigors of AFC North wars. A native of Hawaii with very little exposure to harsh winter weather, he’s short (5-11), has limited arm strength, is not elite athletically, and will be 25 years old in his rookie season.
Yet the Browns had him ranked fourth on their draft board, per a source. They had him behind Ward, Jaxson Dart and Tyler Shough, who were already taken, and ahead of Jalen Milroe, who was taken two spots earlier by Seattle. Shedeur Sanders, who was in the midst of a historic free fall, was sixth on their board after Gabriel and Milroe.
For better or worse, the selection of Gabriel stood as the Browns' backup-of-the-future and furthered the plan to pursue the long-term answer in next year’s draft.
Day Three: With scheduled selections in the fifth and sixth rounds, Berry traded them to Seattle to move up 22 spots in the fifth round and select Sanders with the 144th overall pick.
And this is where the quarterback plan skidded off the rails.
Fans and analysts pining for Sanders from the start viewed this pick as salvation of the entire draft. At worst, they shrugged and said, “Should’ve picked him in the third round instead of Gabriel. Oh well, let’s go!”
On the contrary, the knee-jerk selection of Sanders exposed the Browns for all their faults in failing to solve their terminal problems at quarterback.
How did this happen?
Was Berry instructed by Haslam to take the popular Sanders for the positive reaction it would bring? Did Berry do it out of kindness to Sanders to save him from further embarrassment? Are the Browns simply, hopelessly, addicted to needless drama and national media attention?
This was not a football decision because Berry already laid his QB rankings on the table when -- for better or worse – he selected Gabriel 50 spots earlier.
“We live by our board,” Berry stated a few times over the weekend.
He also said after taking Sanders, “We felt like it wasn’t necessarily the plan going into the weekend to select two quarterbacks …”
Yes, the plan was aborted, Berry said, because “the board does take different twists and turns as you go.”
Sanders never received a glance over three days from former mentor Tom Brady, who now is influencing major decisions with the QB-needy Las Vegas Raiders. The Raiders took one quarterback among their 11 picks -- Cam Miller of North Dakota State with their last selection in the sixth round.
“I can’t speak to why the market priced him the way it did,” Berry said. “We had our own internal valuation in terms of how we viewed the skill set, you know, and the quality of the player. And once it got to a point where it felt like it was at a pretty steep discount, we just felt like, especially relative to the alternative ways that we could use the selection, this made the most sense.”
Except that Sanders was touted as the most NFL-ready quarterback in the draft. Another bit of over-the-top hype, for sure, but good luck training Sanders to be a patient backup.
Let Kevin figure it out
So what happens now? Are there two competitions involving Flacco and Pickett for the starting and backup roles, and another with Gabriel and Sanders for QB3?
Who gets the first reps, the most reps? Who gets traded, waived, or sent to the practice squad?
Considering that Flacco and Pickett are in the last years of their contracts (unless the Browns pick up Pickett’s fifth-year option next week, which would seem unwise), the Browns have to get a feel for what they have in Gabriel and Sanders to determine how aggressively they pursue another quarterback in 2026.
So, once again, Stefanski is left managing a new quarterback room that is sure to change—again -- next year.
“Obviously, you may not divide [reps] 25 [percent], 25, 25, 25,” Stefanski said. “But we feel really confident that we’ll have a plan that is fair to each player and fair to the team as well.”
Yes ... a plan. Evermore the question remains: What exactly is the plan?