Browns’ plan to develop Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders may face an insurmountable problem

https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/article/browns-plan-to-develop-dillon-gabriel-and-shedeur-sanders-may-face-an-insurmountable-problem-015316671.html

When the Cleveland Browns selected Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders in the third and fifth rounds of the 2025 NFL Draft, they sent several messages.

One of them: Talented quarterbacks are valuable assets worth a team’s investment. Throwing darts, plural, at the quarterback question increases the chance of hitting at the most impactful position in the game.

The philosophical assertion gave coaches and executives around the league an expectation that at least one rookie quarterback would start for the Browns in 2025. Few expected Gabriel or Sanders to start Week 1 with veterans Joe Flacco and Kenny Pickett in the room. But the 2025 class would get its chance, league voices figured, whether as a result of the veteran’s play or as a result of piling losses that made prioritizing the future a reasonable top priority.

That became still more guaranteed when the Browns announced Tuesday they were trading Flacco to the Cincinnati Bengals.

Then it took no more than one game of the post-Flacco era to highlight the biggest complication in Cleveland’s plan.

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In order to meaningfully assess quarterbacks in the NFL, teams need to surround them with a baseline level of competence.

The Browns’ offensive cast, due to injuries and much more, fell far below that mark in a 23-9 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Flacco’s 30-point passer rating jump on mere days’ notice with his new team is no coincidence.

So as Gabriel completed his second pro start, he followed up a 33-pass game with a 52-pass outing. Gabriel followed up a contest with 190 yards and two touchdowns by throwing for 221 and no scores.

No one from Cleveland found the end zone as the Browns ticked down from 4.8 yards per offensive play in Gabriel’s first start to 3.3 in his second; from 35.3% on third-down attempts to 20%.

The issues are multifaceted and much is outside of Gabriel’s control.

“There’s a long list of things we got to do better,” Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski said. “Name something, we’ve got to do it better.”

As Browns did little to help Gabriel, QB counters ‘there’s a lot of ways that I can be better’

The Browns’ defense kept the Steelers and Aaron Rodgers out of the end zone in the first half, allowing just nine points before halftime, which should have allowed the Browns to call a balance of runs and passes before the lopsided score would dictate otherwise.

Instead, the Steelers shut down the Browns’ run game and allowed just 65 yards all day a week after Cleveland hung 140 by ground on the Vikings. With fellow 2025 rookie Quinshon Judkins unable to keep the Steelers’ defense honest, the pressure on Gabriel came early and often.

“We had certain agendas that we thought were critical to making this game unfold the way we desired for it to unfold,” Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin said. “We thought they’d play behind the runner. We wanted to do a good job of minimizing him and I think we did that. When you do that, then you’re in favorable, one-dimensional passing circumstances for your defense.

“I think that was reflected in the pressure that we were able to put on the quarterback on the other side of the ball.”

An aggressive strategy mixed with pre-snap disguises to neutralize Gabriel’s knack for diagnosing defenses fueled the Steelers’ 16 quarterback hits. A shaky offensive line that struggled at multiple positions, including new signee and offensive tackle Cam Robinson, contributed to Gabriel absorbing six sacks.

Then came the unreliability of Gabriel’s targets: Jerry Jeudy struggled to keep hands on the ball early. Tight end David Njoku wasn’t looking when Gabriel targeted him within reach on the last scrimmage play before halftime, leaving the Browns to settle for a field goal and six-point halftime deficit rather than a chance to be within a field goal. And on one of Gabriel’s throws to fellow rookie Isaiah Bond in the fourth quarter, Gabriel was accurate enough to hit Bond in the helmet; Bond wasn’t looking and the ball fell to the ground.

Dillon Gabriel was sacked six times and took 16 hits in Sunday’s defeat at the Steelers. (AP Photo/Matt Freed)

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Gabriel downplayed the ways his teammates let him down.

The pressure in the pocket? Gabriel said he could practice more patience and lean into the reduced double coverage downfield. The completions he did make? Gabriel noted how he could have set up teammates for more yards after the catch.

And the drops?

“I think it’s hard to just say there’s drops,” Gabriel said. “There’s a lot of ways that I can be better to help them and times that we can work through those certain things. Within plays, it ain’t going to be perfect. It never will.

“I keep going back to creating completions. And when you do that, you don’t go broke taking a profit.”

Edge rusher Myles Garrett credited Gabriel for hanging in through the volume of hits.

“He’s tough as hell and he knew that it was going to be tough getting through this game because they’re going to send a whole bunch of looks, a whole bunch of blitzes, and they have some really good rushers over there,” Garrett said. “So I’m not surprised that he got up every single time. That’s just the man he is.

“He has a lot of heart.”

As Browns aim to chase wins alongside development, are they on track to fail at both?

When Stefanski addressed the Benjamin Buttoning of his quarterback room in the wake of losing Flacco, he explained a key tenet of his team building.

“I’m very, very invested in our player development, our young player development, our quarterback development,” Stefanski said Wednesday. “So any decision I make, I want to just make sure that I’m doing what’s right for our players.”

As the quarterback hits piled up Sunday, it was fair to wonder whether Gabriel was indeed operating within what was right and best for him. While his 52-throw day proved more ineffective than dangerous, its risks were evident repeatedly: Eight times a Steelers defender got a hand on one of Gabriel’s passes even as they weren’t able to hang on to the takeaway. Multiple near-interceptions occurred, including a dropped pick by linebacker Nick Herbig. Gabriel was spared a fumble on a strip sack by T.J. Watt when Watt was called for an offside flag that broadcast replay couldn’t clearly confirm. And then there were the 16 credited quarterback hits.

It’s possible this will all support the acclimation of Gabriel, whose processing ability is among his top strengths. But it’s also possible that things will get worse before they get better — and that, if they get better for Gabriel, the tide will not turn until he’s on another team.

The Browns need look no further than the last quarterback they selected first overall: Baker Mayfield.

Mayfield and the Browns’ joint experiment failed for several reasons. Regardless of the distribution of blame, the Browns have since traveled years in the quarterback wilderness through a controversial and ultimately ineffective Deshaun Watson trade and multiple Band-Aid attempts all of which leave the team’s high-caliber defense frustrated.

Mayfield, in contrast, joins the Buffalo Bills’ Josh Allen and Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes as the top three favorites to take home MVP honors this season, per BetMGM.

So as Stefanski says “it’s really important to stay in the short term when you’re making these type of decisions,” it doesn’t take much creativity to envision another long-term failure for the Browns.

And before the 2026 NFL Draft, which is expected to feature higher-end quarterback talent than the 2025 crop, the Browns will want to understand how much they can expect not only from Gabriel but also from Sanders.

Sanders was thus promoted to QB2 this game week for the first time, but Stefanski did not give Sanders a chance even as the game slipped out of reach.

“We were just trying to fight there until the end,” Stefanski said when asked about it.

Whether Gabriel or Sanders is playing, the Browns seem on track the rest of this season to front an offensive cast that will ask a quarterback to win in spite of, rather than with or because of, the players around him.

Just look at Flacco’s debut with Cincinnati on Sunday, when he completed 29 of 45 passes for 219 yards and two touchdowns. Flacco’s jump from a 60.3 passer rating in Cleveland to 90.9 five days after arriving is not a fluke.

The Browns should keep all of this in mind as they consider what to ask of their quarterbacks in future weeks, how to spark the run game back to what it looked like a week prior, how to shore up the pocket even if it requires chips and max protection, and how to strengthen the reliability of pass catchers.

“Before you start winning, you got to stop losing,” Stefanski said. “We’re doing some things right now that are preventing us from winning. So we’ll get it fixed.

“We got to get it fixed.”

https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/article/browns-plan-to-develop-dillon-gabriel-and-shedeur-sanders-may-face-an-insurmountable-problem-015316671.html