The regular season is officially less than a month away, and that means it’s time to analyze depth charts. Ever since they decided to add not one but two quarterbacks to the mix through the 2025 NFL Draft, the Cleveland Browns have arguably had one of the most anticipated depth charts of the entire offseason.
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Well, the first one is finally here, and it’s essentially the exact same one that fans have been told to expect for months.
Despite the hype and fanfare surrounding the former Colorado Buffalo in Shedeur Sanders, the Browns, perhaps unsurprisingly, decided to place the 144th overall draft pick at the bottom of the totem pole. Seeing as Gabriel was drafted exactly 50 spots ahead of Sanders, he’s being given the honor of the QB3 spot.
On the Browns’ first depth chart of the season, they list their QBs in this order:
1. Joe Flacco
2. Kenny Pickett
3. Dillon Gabriel
4. Shedeur Sanders pic.twitter.com/p2hu5Oz9JR— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) August 4, 2025
In a bit of a surprise, the former Pittsburgh Steeler Kenny Pickett is still listed as the primary backup even though he is currently sidelined with a hamstring injury. Nevertheless, that leaves the veteran and former Super Bowl MVP, Joe Flacco, as your presumed starter for Week 1 of the regular season.
Seeing as the depth chart also ranks the four quarterbacks by time spent in the NFL, it appears as if seniority is the rule of the land in Cleveland. As stated earlier, however, analysts and Browns personnel alike had been hinting at this being the final result all along.
The GM’s were right? And twitter was wrong? You don’t say….
— Joe (@UFLORIDAJOE) August 4, 2025
The front office seems content to let their two newest signal callers battle it out on the practice field for the next calendar year, giving them an ample amount of time to develop and prove themselves. It’s not an original idea, but it is a tried and true formula that could help to remedy the quarterback issues that have plagued Cleveland since the turn of the century.
Of course, it’s not the result that many had been hoping for. Sanders’s unprecedented slide appears to have made him an even bigger star than he was already, and sooner or later, the cries from the stands may become too much for the coaching staff and general manager to ignore.
Nothing with letting a pair of rookies learn from a gunslinger veteran. Not sure what Pickett is doing there, but hey…it’s the Browns.
— John Hesterman (@john_hesterman) August 4, 2025
As the season begins to unfold and things begin to go sideways, as they seem to inevitably do in Cleveland, Sanders’ presence on the sidelines will prove to be increasingly problematic. The Browns have fielded 40 different starters at the quarterback position going back to 1999, and there’s been nothing to show for it other than a lone playoff win from the 2020 season. So what’s one more?
At some point, frustrations will begin to boil over, as you can only starve a fan base for so long. Whether or not he is actually the best quarterback in Cleveland remains to be seen, but it may not be much longer before we are able to find that out.
