In the Cleveland quarterback competition between Shedeur Sanders and Deshaun Watson, there could be a third candidate creeping up on the outside.<\/p>\n
Dillon Gabriel, drafted two rounds before Sanders in 2025, is performing well enough to earn more chances to perform.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said it the other day, everybody\u2019s competing, but you\u2019re not guaranteed the same amount of reps,\u201d coach Todd Monken told reporters on Monday. \u201cSo it\u2019s up to the player to take advantage and maximize those reps, which I feel like Dillon has done. So we\u2019ll see as we move forward, if that continues, we\u2019ll continue to up his reps. He\u2019s earned that. That\u2019s what every player should expect, right? If they play well, you have to up the reps, or what\u2019s the purpose of playing well?\u201d<\/p>\n
The best players play. If neither Sanders nor Watson seize the job and Gabriel continues to do the most with the chances he has, why shouldn\u2019t he get more chances?<\/p>\n
In theory, that could mean stealing the job from both of them \u2014 if he ends up being the best performer of the bunch.<\/p>\n
Gabriel started six games in 2025, replacing Week 1 starter Joe Flacco. After going 1-5 in those games, Gabriel yielded to Sanders.<\/p>\n
And so the forgotten man on the depth chart could be forcing the Browns to remember him. And, eventually, to play him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the Cleveland quarterback competition between Shedeur Sanders and Deshaun Watson, there could be a third candidate creeping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":802069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-802068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=802068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/802069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}