When the Cleveland Browns selected Oregon Ducks quarterback Dillon Gabriel with the 94th overall pick in the 2025 NFL draft, many likely imagined that Gabriel was the next franchise quarterback for a team that had struggled to find consistent quarterback play in the past decades.
However, the team also drafted Colorado Buffaloes quarterback Shedeur Sanders in the same draft and later named veteran quarterback Joe Flacco as the starter, further complicating matters for the signal caller.
And even though Gabriel saw action in Week 2, Kevin Stefanski still wasn't exactly willing to name Gabriel the new starting arm just yet.
Kevin Stefanski Isn't Thinking About Gabriel As of Now
“Yeah, that’s not our focus. Our focus is to put a game plan together and try to beat a really good Packers team,” Stefanski said in a midweek press conference on Wednesday.
And Flacco himself, as the Browns search for their first win in 2025, knows that a higher level of play is expected from the offense rather than what the team has put forth at this point.
“I think as an offense, when you are talking about playing complementary football, it’s realizing some of those things throughout the course of a game that sometimes even though things don’t feel great, that it still may be a positive,” Flacco said. “Then when we do get our chances, just taking advantage of that. So, if we do get short fields and stuff like that, taking advantage when we get the opportunity.”
The Browns take on the 2-0 Green Bay Packers in Cleveland Sunday at noon.