Nobody is confusing 40-year-old Joe Flacco as the Cleveland Browns quarterback of the future, so it makes sense that owner Jimmy Haslam would like to see what he has in rookie quarterbacks Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders.
But maybe we didn't expect to hear that expressed by Haslam before Week 1 -- just a few months after the owner was accused of meddling during the NFL Draft to ensure that his team selected Sanders in the fifth round. With his team set to embark on what is expected to be another losing season, Haslam recently expressed interest in getting both Gabriel and Sanders playing time this season, according to an ESPN article written by Daniel Oyefusi.
"With the Browns trading Pickett to the Las Vegas Raiders last week, a clearer pathway has been created for the Browns to evaluate the rookie quarterbacks ahead of the 2026 draft," Oyefusi wrote. "When asked if it was important to see Gabriel and Sanders on the field this season, Jimmy Haslam answered, 'Absolutely.'"
It's rare for an NFL owner to express interest in seeing three different quarterbacks take the field for his team in one season, and it's also not exactly conventional to draft two quarterbacks in the same draft -- two rounds apart. According to Oyefusi's reporting, the Browns never expected to spend two draft picks on quarterbacks this year, but Sanders' value was too much to ignore in the fifth round.
"According to the same source with knowledge of the Browns' thinking, Cleveland had intended to add another young quarterback at some point and well in advance of the draft," Oyefusi wrote. "The team designed practice schedules that would allow each passer to get adequate reps without tiring the entire team. Thus, the idea of 2-spotting and breaking the offense into two fields for team drills was born."
Now, the Browns may tinker with the idea of playing multiple QBs on game day.
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