Colorado Buffaloes football legend Shedeur Sanders is not being himself with the Cleveland Browns. He’s not the starter, losing Kevin Stefanski’s quarterback competition to Joe Flacco and Dillon Gabriel to end up QB3 on the depth chart.
Meanwhile, his main role is to play on the scout team and mimic signal-callers the team is facing each week. In Week 1, that was Cincinnati Bengals QB Joe Burrow. In Week 2, it’ll be Baltimore Ravens QB Lamar Jackson.
“At times the concepts resemble what we would run here with the Browns, and at times it’s completely foreign. But the fact that they’re out there and having to make decisions and process and then deliver throws accurately, all that is really good,” Browns QB coach Bill Musgrave said, via transcript from the team shared to Pro Football Talk. “And we try to engineer it or orchestrate it where certain concepts almost meet our quarterbacks. So, I’d say last week Bailey did some really good things that tried to replicate Joe Burrow. We’re doing some things, of course, to replicate Baltimore’s quarterback, Lamar [Jackson] this week with all three guys to really give the defense a good look, because being a scout team quarterback, you’re working on your own craft, but really it’s an art form to replicate the opponent so the defense can be ready to do their thing on Sunday.”
Musgrave took it a step further, claiming Shedeur, Bailey Zappe, and Gabriel take pride in scout team reps.
“I’d say it’s a little bit different and it’s exciting because those guys do take pride in getting the defense ready,” Musgrave said. “They want to do a good job of replicating the opponent’s offense, and at the same time, they want to try to relate any play that they get to our game plan for that week, too, so they can feel like they can get a little double duty there.
“They immersed themselves, both of them in the game plan, did a lot of drill work on the side both before and after practice. And then they get some scout team reps so they can get some balls airborne and make sure that they’re staying in sync. Of course, because really Dillon [is] one play away and Shedeur [is] two plays away.”
Sanders has taken on a much different role than expected in his NFL career. Thus far, he’s been trusted with very little since being taken in the fifth round of the draft this past April in one of the league’s all-time draft slides.
Some think his father, Deion Sanders, can intervene soon and get the “Grown QB” traded. More than likely, though, Shedeur is on his own, just as Shilo has been.
Whether that means starting for a different team, remaining a scout team QB mimicking other players, or falling out of the league entirely, remains to be seen.