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The Browns’ higher-drafted, lower-profile rookie quarterback is embracing the competition with Shedeur Sanders.
Dillon Gabriel, a third-round pick who was taken 60 slots before Sanders in the NFL draft, said he sees the chance to go through things for the first time alongside Sanders in rookie minicamp as a benefit and not as two rookies competing for the upper hand.
The Browns have the NFL’s most crowded quarterback room, including veterans Deshaun Watson (potentially out for the season), Kenny Pickett and Joe Flacco.
“I love it,” Gabriel told reporters before Saturday’s practice. “I love it because of who it is. I think just for us both, you can learn from one another, but also it’s not just us two in the room. For right now it is, but going into the year – Kenny, Joe and even Deshaun – just a bunch of guys who played a bunch of ball that we can all learn from one another.”
Anyone who thought that the Oregon product Gabriel, who finished third in the Heisman Trophy vote, was going to resent all the attention that Sanders commands was wrong.
Sanders, the son of Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, has his own camera crew, and his fall from the first round to the fifth was one of the draft’s biggest storylines.
“Yeah, I mean for me, life of simplicity is a life full of focus,” Gabriel said. “Life of complexity comes with life with distractions. But for me, I’m focused. I’m simple. I know what I want to accomplish.”
It’s going to be easy for the outside world to pit the two former Pac-12 rivals against each other on a day-to-day basis.
Who had the better practice? Who threw the better deep ball? Who are teammates responding to better?
How will Gabriel handle that scrutiny?
“The more questions I get asked like that, it just divides the team,” Gabriel said. “We know how important a healthy QB room is. Also, a team that you want to be a part of. How do you create an environment every single day where everyone can be at their best? That’s just pushing one another, which talent naturally does. Naturally, it’s healthy. We all go do our thing, and everyone wins.”
Sanders also is taking the “it’s me versus me” approach and not trying to measure himself up to Gabriel.
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