Browns villain role, mistreatment claims against Colorado Buffaloes star Shedeur Sanders debunked

The conversation surrounding Shedeur Sanders and his role with the Cleveland Browns has become one of the hotter topics of the team’s training camp.

For Sanders, the scrutiny isn’t new. Ever since the Browns selected the former Colorado Buffaloes star, questions have hovered over his place in the quarterback room and his potential path to QB1.

The rookie is competing with veterans Joe Flacco and Kenny Pickett (before he was injured), along with fellow rookie Dillon Gabriel. As camp progresses, a narrative has emerged suggesting Sanders has been mishandled by the Browns in his bid to climb the depth chart.

Recently, ESPN Cleveland’s Aaron Goldhammer fueled the discussion by reporting that Sanders wasn’t even throwing to Browns receivers, but instead to the team’s equipment staff.

Browns analyst Tony Grossi pushed back on the notion that the organization is mistreating Sanders, insisting the team is giving him an opportunity that 31 other franchises didn’t.

“I shake my head. I don't understand it at all,” Grossi said Friday on ESPN Cleveland radio. “They’re complicating their own situation by drafting him when they did. Their evaluation that Dillon Gabriel was better, let’s take him in the third round. They had enough quarterbacks right there to conduct a competition. And then they drafted Shedeur in the fifth round.

“Why? Well, the GM and the owner both said because ‘value.’ He was worth more than a fifth-round pick. So, I don’t know why the Browns are the bad guys in what’s going on here, that they mistreated him. They treated him better than 31 other teams.”

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Browns GM Andrew Berry admitted that selecting Sanders wasn’t part of the original draft plan.

“Shedeur, we talk often about quarterback being the most important position in the sport,” Berry said back in May. “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, and we didn’t necessarily expect him to be available in the fifth round.”

Browns owner Jimmy Haslam added during camp that he personally would not have drafted Sanders.

“If you’d have told me Friday night (Day 2) driving home, y’all are going to pick Shedeur, I would have said, ‘That’s not happening.’ But we had a conversation early that morning and we had a conversation later that day. I think we had the right people involved in the conversation.

“At the end of the day, that’s Andrew Berry’s call. Andrew made the call to pick Shedeur.”

For now, Sanders is slowly earning reps. On Wednesday, he faced the Browns’ first-team defense for the first time, completing two of three passes during an 11-on-11 period. Still, he remains the only quarterback in camp yet to take first-team snaps.