The 2025 NFL season is coming up quickly, but the Cleveland Browns still have a lot of work to do and a crucial decision to make. Entering training camp and preseason action, the team will have an all-out quarterback competition.
At this point, the Browns have five quarterbacks on their roster. Four of those five quarterbacks are expected to compete for the Week 1 starting job.
Those four quarterbacks are Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett, Dillon Gabriel, and Shedeur Sanders.
If the season were to start today, Flacco would likely be the starter. Pickett, Gabriel, and Sanders are all going to be given chances to take that starting job away from Flacco both to begin the year and throughout the season.
Gabriel, who was the third-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft for Cleveland, has not gotten off to a hot start. All the talk has surrounded the fifth-round pick, Sanders, but the Browns are still very high on Gabriel.
Dan Labbe of Cleveland.com has revealed a major update regarding Gabriel. He has reported that the former Oregon standout has a longer leash than Sanders due to the fact that the team drafted him higher.
“So where they draft these guys matters and there’s a reason they drafted them and they do care about that to an extend,” Labbe said. “Dillon Gabriel was a third-round pick. And so while we’re sitting here saying he hasn’t looked the best of these two quarterbacks and especially today, he’s also just got a longer leash and he’s just got more room to not be, to maybe not be the guy they’ve envisioned yet because he was a third-round pick and that matters.”
Basically, because the team invested such a high pick in Gabriel they’re going to give him more chances than they would have given him if he were a fifth round pick.
When Cleveland drafted Gabriel in the third round, the move sent shock around the NFL. Many expected the young quarterback to be a sixth round pick.
Despite the perception of him being much later pick, the Browns clearly liked and valued what they saw in him.
It will be interesting to watch how the quarterback competition unfolds, especially between Gabriel and Sanders. As the season progresses, it would not be surprising to see both young signal callers be given chances for playing time.
