Deshaun Watson won’t be available until midseason. Joe Flacco is too old to get preseason reps. Kenny Pickett’s been hurt for weeks. And now Shedeur Sanders is sidelined with an oblique injury. It was reported that Dillon Gabriel is a game-time decision for Saturday’s preseason game against the Eagles as well, as he’s still been limited for much of this week with his lingering hamstring injury. Assuming he does get the start, however, it will be Gabriel and Tyler Huntley under center for the Cleveland Browns in our second preseason game – and there is a lot of information to be gathered from how the rookie performs in his first-ever NFL action.
Off the bat, it’s worth mentioning that Dillon has been struggling this week in joint practices with the Eagles. While not every snap is on camera, the stats are certainly recorded – and they don’t provide a pretty picture. It’s not encouraging to see the numbers he’s been putting up, but there’s no context behind the numbers and it’s only practice – preseason practice at that. Now that we’re able to watch every snap, however, we will finally be provided context behind the snaps: are the incompletions on Dillon or the receivers? Were they bad reads or were they drops? We’ll be able to analyze his play in the next-best thing to a real game and possibly be able to determine whether the former Heisman finalist can find continued success at the next level.
The fact on everyone’s minds is that Shedeur had himself a great (and largely mistake-free) debut last week against the Panthers. If he wants to outperform Sanders, then Gabriel has a high bar to clear. That being said, it should be noted that the Eagles have a much more competent defense than the Panthers do – whether it be first, second, or third team, the competition this week will be better than anything we went up against in our last game. Because Shedeur isn’t playing, this Eagles game won’t be a good opportunity to compare the two rookie quarterbacks. The defense that Gabriel is facing this week just doesn’t compare to the one that Shedeur faced and if DG is less successful than Shedeur, it’s to be expected. But if Dillon somehow outperforms Shedeur’s debut against a better defensive front, it will certainly open some eyes across the league.
It’s obvious the Browns liked DG more than Shedeur during the pre-draft process (as evidenced by their respective draft picks), so even if he struggles, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Gabriel remain ahead of Sanders on next week’s depth chart. It’s reasonable to assume that the only way this game shakes up the QB room is if Dillon manages to outshine Shedeur’s debut performance, which would likely move him ahead of Pickett, or if he has the most abysmal game by any quarterback ever in NFL history (which would obviously eliminate him from contention). Anything in between the two, and it seems likely that the depth chart will remain the same as it has been for the past two weeks. Until the rookie quarterbacks face the same competition, it’s hard to compare the two in a fair manner – and it’s unlikely that the front office will be able to justify moving their third-round pick down the depth chart unless that side-by-side comparison is able to be made.
Because it’s his debut, I’m really not expecting too much from the kid – I just want to see good decisions. And since Shedeur isn’t playing in this game, it will be an opportunity for Gabriel to perform without the stress of the QB battle weighing on him. He’s facing a tougher opponent, so he doesn’t have to worry about outperforming his fellow rookie’s stat line – nobody expects him to. He just needs to show what he can do. Realistically, all that we should watch for in this game is whether he’s making the right reads – the stats don’t matter, the snaps do. Every time he gets the ball, don’t simply watch for whether the ball is caught or not. Watch how he makes his progressions and the way he processes the game – after all, those are some of the biggest factors that convinced Stefanski and Berry to draft him in the third round.
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