Browns may cut Colorado Buffaloes football legend Shedeur Sanders before 2025 season even starts

Colorado Buffaloes football legend Shedeur Sanders isn’t getting a hero’s welcome in the NFL. After sliding to the fifth round of the 2025 draft to the Browns, Sanders may not even play a regular season game in Cleveland.

“Sanders landed in a place where he’s no sure thing to even make the roster, given that he’ll likely open training camp fourth on the depth behind Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett and Dillon Gabriel. (Deshaun Watson is also on the roster but currently rehabbing an Achilles injury.) But he says he’s willing to do whatever it takes to earn a roster spot,” Pro Football Talk’s Michael Davis wrote.

Browns GM Andrew Berry admitted that he felt former Oregon, Oklahoma, and UCF star Dillon Gabriel, whom the team took in the third round with the No. 94 overall pick, was better than Sanders.

“We talk oftentimes about quarterback being the most important position in the sport,” Berry told ESPN. “We obviously spent a lot of time with Shedeur throughout the process. He's highly accurate, can play well from the pocket, very productive college career. And we felt like it wasn't necessarily the plan going into the weekend to select two quarterbacks, but we do believe in best player available, we do believe in positional value. We didn't necessarily expect him to be available in the fifth round. So, we love adding competition to every position room and adding him to compete with guys that are already in there, we felt like that was the appropriate thing to do.”

With Gabriel, Kenny Pickett, and Joe Flacco to compete with, Sanders has a better chance of being cut than sticking with the Browns.

Flacco is the frontrunner to win the job, but Deshaun Watson could retake his starting spot if/when he successfully returns from an Achilles tear.

Being a fifth-round draft pick means it’s easier for Cleveland to cut Sanders than Gabriel – ditto for Pickett, whom the Browns gave up a draft pick to land.

Shedeur may be the odd man out in Cleveland after being the center of attention in Boulder and at Jackson State before that. How he handles potentially being released, and perhaps more notably, how Deion Sanders handles it, will dominate the NFL news cycle.