NFL’s ‘league-wide belief’ is Browns may use Colorado Buffaloes football legend Shedeur Sanders, Dillon Gabriel, Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett as trade bait

Colorado Buffaloes football legend/infamous fifth-round 2025 draft faller Shedeur Sanders, 2025 third-round pick Dillon Gabriel, 40-year-old Joe Flacco, or 2022 first-round pick Kenny Pickett “will” be off the Cleveland Browns, potentially even being used as trade bait.

That’s the claim CBS Sports’ Brad Crawford made in response to T.J. Houshmandzadeh’s recent intel drop that the Browns’ starting job is going to either Pickett or Gabriel, based on what his sources say.

“There is league-wide belief the Browns will only keep three quarterbacks, potentially using one as trade bait,” Crawford said.

Crawford furthered his reporting from two weeks ago, adding the wrinkle that there’s the possibility of a trade.

“The widespread belief around the NFL is that Cleveland will not keep all four quarterbacks on its roster in 2025,” Crawford wrote.

The only player who makes any sense as a trade candidate would be Pickett.

Cleveland rehabilitating his image by attaching a fifth-round pick to Dorian Thompson-Robinson to land Pickett from the Philadelphia Eagles, and then having him win the QB competition, would be a stroke of genius by Browns GM Andrew Berry.

It’d also be a genius move to keep Sanders around, since Berea has become the center of the NFL universe this summer. Send Shedeur away, even if he is last on the depth chart, and the franchise’s interest would go back down from its meteoric peaks right now.

Gabriel was overvalued in Cleveland and undervalued elsewhere, so he wouldn’t make sense. Teams with messy rooms with rookie quarterbacks leading the race, like the New Orleans Saints, are better off evaluating their in-house options.

Flacco would’ve been signed by any of these teams in free agency if they wanted him. So he also wouldn’t make sense.

If a trade is made in the Browns’ QB room, expect Pickett to be in it.