Browns writer predicts worst-case scenario for Colorado Buffaloes football legend Shedeur Sanders in 2025

Colorado Buffaloes football legend Shedeur Sanders may not be the rookie the Cleveland Browns turn to during the 2025 NFL season. And that’s as bad a scenario as any for the “Grown QB” in his professional debut season.

Dawg Pound Daily’s Dante Walker predicts Dillon Gabriel getting looks under center because of how highly the organization’s brain trust views him – supposedly so much so that if he were taller, he would’ve been the No. 2 pick in the draft, according to Browns color analyst Nathan Zegura.

“The Browns didn't draft Dillon Gabriel sooner because they didn't have to. While the outside world continues to focus on Shedeur Sanders, whose minicamp performance was praised just as glowingly, don't sleep on Dillon Gabriel. He appears to have the support of some of the most important decision-makers in the organization, and it should surprise no one if he is under center at some point in 2025,” Walker wrote.

Sanders being surpassed by Gabriel this fall would create brutal headlines for the “Grown QB.”

Many would take it as a sign he probably isn’t NFL material, discounting Gabriel’s battle-tested Big Ten and SEC resume. They’d also claim the media overhyped Sanders’ rookie minicamp to make up for the PR damage done by the draft.

Deion does have those NFL connections he boasts about, after all.

The truth is that Shedeur’s legacy cannot, and will not, be decided on what happens during the 2025 NFL season. After he wasn’t taken on the draft’s first night, it was assumed by most that he wouldn’t start this year anyway.

If he loses the starting job to Gabriel at any point, he can bide his time until an opening arises and steal the job for good, a la Colin Kaepernick and Alex Smith in 2012. Or he can be traded to a team with a need under center.

But Sanders’ path to being an NFL QB1 wouldn’t be closed. It’d just be severely clouded as the media firestorm would overwhelmingly pile on.