Former Colorado QB Shedeur Sanders tumbled down the 2025 NFL Draft board from being an initially discussed first-round pick to the Cleveland Browns drafting him in round five, almost like an afterthought.
Had it not been for General Manager Andrew Berry, Sanders’ catastrophic draft slide would have stretched yet further. Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam recently came clean on his opinion of Sanders pre-draft, asserting how unexpected the pick was for him.
Drafting QB Shedeur Sanders Was Not the Browns Owner’s Decision
Talking to the reporters post training camp on July 29, Haslam pointed out that it would be a clear “that’s not happening” had Sanders’ pick been his call.
“If you’d have told me… Friday night driving home, ‘Y’all are going to pick Shedeur,’ I would say, ‘That’s not happening,’” Haslam stated.
“We had a conversation early that [Saturday] morning, and then we had a conversation later that day. I think we had the right people involved in the conversation.”
#Browns Jimmy Haslam stresses that Shedeur Sanders was Andrew Berry’s pick, not his. pic.twitter.com/sD3yQYwSq8
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Teams giving Sanders short shrift is public knowledge by this point. His pre-draft interviews were a mess, as confirmed by several anonymous NFL teams, with one of them even claiming it was the “worst formal interview I’ve ever been in in my life.”
This prompted what could easily be called the wildest free fall in the history of the NFL Drafts. Haslam’s confirmation of Sanders not being the team’s consensus choice just adds another layer to the off-field narratives taking shape around that disaster.
“At the end of the day, that’s Andrew Berry’s call. Andrew made the call to pick Shedeur, just like who’s going to start or what play we’re going to call is [Kevin Stefanski’s] call. That’s Andrew’s call. He made the call,” the Browns owner continued.
Can QB Shedeur Sanders Still Have a Shot At Starting Role?
The recent developments in Berea suggest Sanders might have a shot at being the starting QB in Week 1. To start with, the QB reportedly got some rare first-team reps in the training camp, where he performed better than Joe Flacco and Dillon Gabriel.
Kenny Pickett’s injury specifically opens the door for Sanders to have a shot at being the QB1 in Week 1. Though Flacco and Gabiel have just as much chance to earn that spot.
“I want to win football games. I want to prove that I can still do it, and it’s very important to me. Like I said, I don’t want to be a backup. I haven’t wanted to do that for the last four or five years, or however long it’s been. I want to play football,” Flacco added, stressing that he is still in the mix.
The Browns want nothing more than to turn around the script this year. With three QBs, Stefanski will test each of them out in every way.
Main Image: Ken Blaze – Imagn Images
The post Browns Owner Did Not Expect, Neither Wanted to Draft QB Shedeur Sanders appeared first on Last Word on Pro Football.