After Draft-Day Snub and Drama, Sanders to Start Preseason Opener

After a stunning drop in the 2025 NFL Draft, Shedeur Sanders will start for the Browns in their opening preseason game Friday night.

Sanders, the former Colorado quarterback and son of Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, was one of the biggest names coming into the draft. But amid swirling rumors that teams didn’t want to deal with the presence of his superstar father, Sanders fell to the fifth round. The Browns chose Sanders at pick No. 144, notably their second quarterback taken behind Dillon Gabriel.

The slide even caught the attention of U.S. President Donald Trump, who posted on his Truth Social platform ahead of the draft’s second round: “What is wrong with NFL owners, are they STUPID?…He should be ‘picked’ IMMEDIATELY by a team that wants to WIN.” Sanders also received a prank call that resulted in a $250,000 fine for the Falcons and $100,000 fine for their defensive coordinator, whose son called the quarterback.

The Browns already have a crowded quarterback room. Joe Flacco, 40, has been the team’s main slinger in practice. Gabriel and Kenny Pickett are other options, but they are both out with hamstring injuries. This week, Cleveland added Tyler “Snoop” Huntley. (Deshaun Watson, who signed a fully guaranteed five-year, $230 million deal with the Browns in 2022, has a torn Achilles tendon and is expected to miss most of the season, if not all.)

Teams often use their starters sparingly during the preseason to allow players fighting for a spot on the 53-man roster a chance to make their case (and to avoid exposing starters to potential injuries). NFL teams typically keep two, sometimes three, quarterbacks at most, meaning a low-stakes preseason game could be consequential in Sanders’s making the final roster.

Cleveland head coach Kevin Stefanski confirmed Wednesday that Sanders will get the start, and that he and Huntley will be the only quarterbacks to see the field. The Browns play the Panthers in Charlotte.

Despite his fall, Sanders still had the third-best-selling incoming rookie jersey in the days after the draft. The Colorado bookstore is selling the jersey of Travis Hunter, taken No. 2 overall by the Jaguars, and said Sanders’s jersey is supposed to arrive soon.

Sanders has said he doesn’t want his father attending Browns camp after he visited his brother Shilo for his first practice in Tampa Bay.

“I don’t want him coming to see me right now because I want to get to where I want to go, then for him to see me,” the young quarterback said earlier this week. “I don’t want him to come and see me get a couple reps, and he is cheering like a good dad. Like, nah, you can’t be proud of me right now. I got to get to where I’m going, and I know it’s a lot I got to do to get there.”