Browns announce Shedeur Sanders’ spot on the QB depth chart after cut decisions before Week 1

Billy Heyen

Browns announce Shedeur Sanders’ spot on the QB depth chart after cut decisions before Week 1 image

The Cleveland Browns unveiled their Week 1 depth chart on Tuesday afternoon.

All eyes went to the QB spot, just to be sure, with particular interest on the most-hyped fifth-round pick ever, Shedeur Sanders.

There were no surprises, though.

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Cleveland Browns QB depth chart

The Browns' unofficial depth chart released Tuesday, Sept. 2 has the quarterbacks slotted like this:

  1. Joe Flacco
  2. Dillon Gabriel
  3. Shedeur Sanders

That's ahead of practice squad quarterback Bailey Zappe.

This is how it was expected to be, of course.

It was clear by mid-August what had been assumed for much of the offseason, that the 40-year old Flacco would start Week 1 vs. the Bengals.

The Browns then got rid of Kenny Pickett by trading him to the Las Vegas Raiders to be the backup QB to Geno Smith out there.

That left two rookies behind Flacco.

All along, Gabriel was ahead of Sanders in the pecking order.

He was drafted in the third round, exactly 50 picks before Sanders.

And in the preseason, Gabriel was given the earlier and better reps compared to Sanders.

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Eyes will be watching this all season to see when and how many starts the Browns may give to the rookies to see if either has a future in Cleveland as a potential long-term QB option.

But for Week 1, it'll be the still-strong-armed Flacco who gets to match up with Burrow and try to keep up with a Bengals offense that promises to score a heck of a lot of points.

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Billy Heyen

Billy Heyen is a freelance writer with The Sporting News. He is a 2019 graduate of Syracuse University who has written about many sports and fantasy sports for The Sporting News. Sports reporting work has also appeared in a number of newspapers, including the Sandusky Register and Rochester Democrat & Chronicle