The Cleveland Browns once again have a mess of a QB situation. What a surprise! Who could have seen this coming when they put on a four-man QB battle in training camp? Kenny Pickett was traded, veteran Joe Flacco has struggled, throwing six picks, and third-round rookie Dillon Gabriel seems on the cusp of his first career start. But where does that leave Shedeur Sanders?
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Well, that depends. Head coach Kevin Stefanski could decide that he’s seen enough of Flacco and relegate him to QB3 or even cut him, leaving the coveted Browns backup QB role to Sanders. Perhaps, Stefanski could simply swap Flacco with Gabriel and make the 41-year-old the backup.
Either way, Shedeur needs another player to mess up before he can become a starting QB like he believes he can.
Last week, Sanders ruffled some feathers once again when he said he could do better than some of the QBs he was seeing in the league. It’s not an insane statement, but maybe not one a QB3 should make. However, as with everything Sanders says and does, it was blown out of proportion by the NFL media. This time, Rex Ryan stepped up to the plate.
“This kid talks and he runs his mouth. Like he said, ‘I can be a starting quarterback’ with his arms crossed like this. Get your a** in the front row and study and do all that,” Ryan said.
“If I know, the whole league knows. Quit being an embarrassment that way. You’ve got the talent to be the quarterback, you should be. You should be embarrassed that you’re not the quarterback now,” he sternly added.
People in the NFL media like Ryan can’t get enough of Shedeur Sanders, they report on him every chance they get. Of course, Sanders often ends up on the wrong side of his sermons.
Emmanuel Acho, on his new YouTube show with LeSean McCoy, SpeakEasy, compared the current situation to the Colin Kaepernick situation.
“The dilemma with Colin Kaepernick, was not that he was not talented enough to be in the NFL. The dilemma with Colin Kaepernick was that he wasn’t talented enough to be worth upsetting the decision-makers of the NFL,” Acho noted, adding, “if your talent does not match your distraction, they will not make room for you.”
It’s a reasonable enough line of logic for Acho. Though it is somewhat belittling the gravity of the Kaepernick situation and all the that entailed to compare it to this silly new Shedeur Sanders drama.
McCoy took a more incisive tack, pointing out that Sanders was viewed as a top two QB in the draft up until the day of, and suggesting the NFL did blackball Sanders to an extent.
“Why do I gotta change for anybody? And I’m not gonna say who. My job is, I play football. My swagger and my brand is what it is. I’ve never gotten in no trouble with the law, I’ve never had no domestic violence. All I do, the crime you want to commit me for, is I got swagger, and I’m black, and I talk a certain way. That’s his only crime!” he passionately noted.
Acho predictably started back-tracking after McCoy dropped that bomb on him. And while some will call it conspiratorial, it’s just as reasonable a line of logic to draw as the one Acho did when you consider the personal beliefs of the stakeholders of the NFL.
Shedeur’s father, Deion Sanders, flouted the NFL’s conservative conventions with his loud swagger throughout his career, and those stake holders hated him for it. Prime Time. Neon Deion. The high step. He was just too good at football for them to ever punish him for it. That could be why the sword now continues to fall on the less talented Shedeur.
