How Shedeur Sanders Is Impacted By The Browns Falling To No 6 In Nfl

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Jan 11, 2026, 11:01 AM

how shedeur sanders is impacted by the browns falling to no 6 in nfl

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Shedeur Sanders not only helped himself with a nice mix of passes and efficiency during Sunday’s 13-6 victory over the Steelers, he also made it more difficult for the Browns to... The victory dropped the Browns from No. 3 to No. 6 in NFL Draft order, which could take them out of the mix for the one of the top three quarterbacks in the draft in Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza, Oregon’s Dante Moore and Alabama’s Ty... As it is, the Browns were eliminated from landing the No. 1 pick with the win, which left them at 4-12 heading into Sunday’s season finale against the Bengals.

If the Browns lose to the 6-10 Bengals in Cincinnati, they could climb all the way to No. 2 in draft order, but the chances of that are miniscule. The Browns would need the Giants, Jets, Titans and Cardinals all to win for that to happen. The good news for the Browns is that the worst they can do is No. 7, with No. 6 being the most likely landing spot.

Shedeur Sanders completed 4 of 16 passes for 47 yards and an interception and was sacked twice in the Browns' 23-16 loss to the Ravens on Sunday. Nick Cammett / Getty Images CLEVELAND — There was never a conspiracy. The Cleveland Browns are not actively trying to sabotage one of their own players. The absurd, unhinged discourse of the past six months that the Browns were setting Shedeur Sanders up to fail was put to rest over the final 30 minutes Sunday when Sanders fell down every... He was 4-for-16 for 47 yards and an interception in the Browns’ 23-16 loss to the Baltimore Ravens.

He had a quarterback rating of 13.5 and an Expected Points Added per play of minus-0.67 — the worst mark of the week for any quarterback entering Sunday night. Most importantly, the Browns were winning when he entered the game in the second half after starter Dillon Gabriel was knocked out with a concussion. They blew the lead when he couldn’t sustain any offense and lost the game when the final drive stalled at the Ravens’ 25-yard line. Shedeur Sanders' first start as a member of the Cleveland Browns took place earlier than many anticipated it would. Sanders was tapped to start Cleveland's first preseason game despite being fourth on the team's quarterback depth chart. The fifth-round rookie's opportunity came as Kenny Pickett and Dillon Gabriel dealt with injuries while coach Kevin Stefanski had 40-year-old veteran Joe Flacco sit out the game.

As a result, Sanders was given a chance to handle the bulk of the Browns' offseason reps. He and Tyler "Snoop" Huntley were the only two quarterbacks to see action during the game, which gave the Colorado product an ideal chance to state his case for a spot on Cleveland's 53-man... How did Sanders do in his extensive opportunity? Here are the winners and losers of Sanders' Browns debut against the Carolina Panthers. Sanders was given a chance to play a majority of Cleveland's preseason opener against the Panthers. He did not disappoint in extensive action.

Shedeur Sanders' first true NFL snaps didn't go great. Sanders came in to replace Dillon Gabriel in the second half of the Cleveland Browns' 23-16 loss to the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday afternoon after Gabriel went down with a concussion. Gabriel did not come out with the team to start the second half at Huntington Bank Field, so the Browns turned to Sanders for the first time in the regular season early in the... Sanders finished 4-of-16 passing for 47 yards and no touchdowns, an interception and two sacks taken. "I don't think I played good at all," he said, via The Athletic's Zac Jackson. He came out firing and hit Cedric Tillman for a 5-yard gain on his first official NFL snap.

But the Browns' drive quickly stalled out, and Sanders fumbled after Kyle Hamilton brought him down with a sack on third down. The Browns recovered the fumble, but Hamilton and his teammates didn't hesitate to troll the former Colorado star, who's been a lightning rod for discussion, good and bad, since being drafted by Cleveland in... It's unclear when Gabriel went down with his injury, though the team quickly ruled him out in the second half. Specifics on his status moving forward aren't yet known. Gabriel went 7-of-10 passing for 68 yards in the first half for the Browns, who couldn't get much of anything going offensively early. They still took a 16-10 lead into the locker room at halftime, thanks to three field goals and a 23-yard interception return for a touchdown from Devin Bush in the second quarter.

The short-handed lineup. The brutally cold conditions. The tough (and hungry) opponent on the road. Sunday’s game at Soldier Field was always going to be a tough one for rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders and the Cleveland Browns to manage. That doesn’t entirely excuse Sanders’ final stat line in Sunday’s 31-3 loss to the Chicago Bears. It was ugly, much like this entire Browns season has become.

Sanders’ playmaking ability wasn't nearly enough to offset Cleveland’s rash of injuries on offense. He only completed 51.4 percent of his 35 pass attempts, and three of them were picked off by a Bears defense that led the NFL in takeaways coming in. Sanders sounded like a man who knew his future as the Browns’ QB1 was far from guaranteed this week, when he said: "You don’t know what could happen. I just go in here, enjoy my day, work hard, do everything I can — and if I’m here, I’m here. If I’m not, I’m not. It’s nothing that’s in my control, so I try to control what I can control, and that’s going out there, making the right reads, doing the right things, being the person I am, and...

Sunday’s game was obviously deflating, but given the circumstances, it shouldn’t carry as much weight as the final statistics make it seem. The last seven games for the Cleveland Browns, with rookie Shedeur Sanders at quarterback, certainly showed progress for a team that ran what’s been ranked as the worst offense in the NFL. The Browns were no juggernaut, but they closed with a 3-4 record in Sanders’ seven starts and showed glimpses of becoming a credible offense with Sanders under center. Sanders was hardly great–he threw for 1,400 yards in eight games with 10 interceptions and seven touchdowns, posting a 68.1 quarterback rating, but the team did seem to rally around him and he seemed... He may yet get that chance. But on Monday, after the Browns announced the firing of coach Kevin Stefanski, general manager Andrew Berry said that he was not committing to making Sanders the starter in 2026.

In front a throng of Browns reporters, Berry addressed the dismissal of Stefanski before the questions turned to Sanders. It’s been reported that it was Berry who pushed for the selection of Sanders in the fifth round amid his massive NFL draft fall last April. Berry had several positives to dole out to Sanders. “I think we saw a lot of progress with Shedeur this year. I think that’s both mentally, physically, playing the position,” Berry said. “He’s still very much a work in progress, like many rookie quarterbacks are, but I think we saw some really good things in terms of his play-making, his accuracy, his ability to extend plays...

The Browns have lost some bad games due to their quarterback play this season. In Sunday's 31-29 defeat to the Titans, that wasn't the case. In by far his best NFL game of his career thus far, Shedeur Sanders finished with 364 yards, three touchdown passes, and a rushing score in the loss, making some sweet history in the... In the wake of the narrow defeat, some fans are pointing the finger at coach Kevin Stefanski, who curiously took out Sanders on the Browns' final offensive play of the game, a two-point conversion... Sanders was asked about getting pulled and whether he wished he had the ball in that moment to potentially tie the game. He had quite the classy response, refusing to throw anyone under the bus on the call:

"If I'm out there any play, I would wish I would always have the ball in my hands, but that's not what football is. Sometimes you got to run the ball, sometimes you got to kick a field goal. ... In any situation, of course you would want to. But I know we practiced something, and we executed it in practice, and we just didn't seem to do it today. I would never go against what the call was or anything."

January 5, 2026, 8:13pm EST 657 • By Lou Flavius Could the Cleveland Browns move on from Shedeur Sanders? The Cleveland Browns closed another losing season on Sunday, despite ending 2025 on a winning note. And they may not be moving into next season with Shedeur Sanders, at least not as their starter. Cleveland has already made one of the most significant decisions they had to make following the end of the regular season in firing Kevin Stefanski. Sanders had one word to describe Stefanski and their relationship after Sunday’s win vs.

the Cincinnati Bengals. CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Shedeur Sanders experiment has been a rollercoaster of brilliant throws, head-scratching decisions, and everything in between. On the latest Orange and Brown Talk podcast, film analyst Lance Reisland delivered a comprehensive assessment of the rookie quarterback’s development that highlighted both the significant strides he’s made and the alarming flaws that... “If you ask me what he needs to work on moving forward, it’s catastrophic mistakes,” Reisland stated plainly on the podcast. “As an offensive coordinator, I didn’t base things on numbers, I use numbers to help with feel. And one of the things I would always say is we only get between 8 and 12 possessions a game.

So that ball is life.” Reisland’s analysis focused particularly on Sanders’ performance against the Steelers, where the rookie quarterback showed flashes of improvement but also made critical errors that could have derailed the game, including a throw that Steelers... These kinds of mistakes, Reisland emphasized, simply can’t happen at the NFL level. “Those are things he got away with in college,” Reisland explained. “You can’t do those things in the NFL. And it seems like in the NFL you always pay for those things big time.

So once again, a lot of good and less and less bad. And unfortunately the few things he’s doing wrong are really bad.” Beyond the turnover issues, the podcast highlighted operational aspects of quarterbacking that Sanders still struggles with — from play clock management to getting back to the huddle efficiently after plays. These fundamental aspects of NFL quarterback play remain a work in progress. Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders made his long-awaited debut Sunday, but the outing hardly went the way the rookie would have liked it to go. The fifth-round pick out of Colorado, whose slide became the story of the 2025 NFL Draft, stepped into Sunday's game against the Baltimore Ravens after halftime, when starter Dillon Gabriel was evaluated for a...

How Shedeur Sanders Is Impacted By The Browns Falling To No 6 In Nfl

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