{"id":232839,"date":"2025-10-22T16:05:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T16:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/232839\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T16:05:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T16:05:08","slug":"stefanski-sanders-not-getting-starting-reps-behind-gabriel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/232839\/","title":{"rendered":"Stefanski: Sanders not getting starting reps behind Gabriel"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Daniel OyefusiOct 23, 2025, 02:37 AM<\/p>\n

Close<\/a>Daniel Oyefusi covers the Cleveland Browns for ESPN. Prior to ESPN, he covered the Miami Dolphins for the Miami Herald, as well as the Baltimore Ravens for The Baltimore Sun.<\/p>\n

BEREA, Ohio — When Cleveland Browns<\/a> coach Kevin Stefanski turned to rookie Dillon Gabriel<\/a> as the team’s starting quarterback on Oct. 1, he noted that the third-round pick had received practice reps with the first-team offense as the backup to Joe Flacco<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Stefanski, though, when asked Wednesday about fellow rookie and backup quarterback Shedeur Sanders<\/a>‘ practice regimen, said the fifth-round pick is not receiving reps with the starting offense.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/p>\n

“With a young quarterback, with Dillon starting, you want to make sure he gets a lot of the reps. It’s different when you have a veteran with Joe,” said Stefanski, who also noted that Sanders is “still getting reps in a bunch of periods.”<\/p>\n

Sanders, the son of Pro Football Hall of Famer and Colorado<\/a> football coach Deion Sanders, has served as the backup to Gabriel for the last two games in the aftermath of the Browns trading Flacco to the Cincinnati Bengals<\/a>. Sanders served as the No. 3 and emergency quarterback for the first five games of the season.<\/p>\n

Before moving to the QB2 role, Sanders was splitting scout team reps with Gabriel and practice squad quarterback Bailey Zappe<\/a>. Stefanski has previously noted that Sanders, as well as other young players, also get reps in post-practice sessions.<\/p>\n

The Browns are 1-2 since moving to Gabriel, who got his first victory as a starter last Sunday, a 31-6 home win over the Miami Dolphins<\/a>. Gabriel has completed 59.8% of his passes for 546 yards and three touchdowns. His 30.4 Total QBR would rank only above Tennessee Titans<\/a> rookie Cam Ward<\/a> (23.9).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daniel OyefusiOct 23, 2025, 02:37 AM CloseDaniel Oyefusi covers the Cleveland Browns for ESPN. Prior to ESPN, he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":["post-232839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}