The Cleveland Browns currently have four healthy quarterbacks on their roster, but we already know that Joe Flacco will win the starting job. So, there really isn’t much of a competition anymore outside of guys competing on the depth chart.
Kenny Pickett, Shedeur Sanders and Dillon Gabriel are all technically battling for a roster spot, although more and more momentum has been building that the Browns could potentially keep all four quarterbacks on their roster.
But would Cleveland actually do this? Unless the Browns have limited confidence in the rookie duo of Sanders and Gabriel, keeping Pickett seems a bit redundant at this point. However, radio host Bruce Drennan said that he expects the Browns to actually roll into the regular season with a quartet of signal-callers on their 53-man roster.
“They’re going to carry the four quarterbacks,” Drennan said. “All indications are they’re going to carry all four.”
Why would the Browns keep four quarterbacks?
Keeping four quarterbacks is incredibly unorthodox. There are some teams that don’t even retain more than two in the modern NFL, so if Cleveland did this, it would be very odd.
Pickett is clearly not the future for the Browns, so why not just trade him to clear a roster spot for someone else? Or does Cleveland think that neither Sanders nor Gabriel will be ready to supplant Flacco at some point during the 2025 campaign?
The Browns did surrender a fifth-round pick in the Pickett trade, so perhaps they simply do not want to lose the deal by trading him for a lesser return (or outright releasing him). But it really does not make a whole lot of sense to keep four signal-callers.
Of course, Cleveland could also move one of Sanders or Gabriel, but that seems far less likely given that the Browns just drafted both of them this past April.
