It's a full-blown party in the Cleveland Browns quarterback room going into training camp, simply due to how many viable options they appear to have to compete for the starting job going into it. Veteran Joe Flacco signed in the offseason before they Browns selected both Shedeur Sanders and Dillon Gabriel. Sandwiched in there, Cleveland also traded for former Pittsburgh Steelers first-round bust Kenny Pickett, but they're hoping to find something in the Pitt product that neither the Steelers nor the Eagles were able to find.
While there has been a lot of talk about Sanders and Gabriel, all indications from the team have been that Pickett and Flacco will go into training camp to battle for the starting quarterback job as the favorites. For Flacco, that stands to reason. He was inserted into Kevin Stefanski's offense on the fly in recent years and proved valuable in doing so. With Pickett, however, NFL Network insider Cameron Wolfe unpacked the feeling in the building for the Browns, one that rival Steelers fans can only laugh at.
Wolfe talked with Stefanski around the draft and, after expressing confidence in Flacco's grasp of the offense, the Browns head coach also expressed the desire to get more from Pickett's talent.
"He talked about Kenny Pickett and his talent, and feeling like they can develop more out of him, as well," Wolfe reported. "We've seen in the past, Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, sort of get career resurgences, and there's a belief they can do some of that with Kevin Stefanski."
Stacking up the Browns 4-man QB race Joe Flacco vs. Kenny Pickett vs. Shedeur Sanders vs. Dillon Gabriel headed into summer.
— Cameron Wolfe (@CameronWolfe) June 25, 2025
For @nflnetwork The Insiders: pic.twitter.com/ATVDYfBjoQ
You have to respect the belief, but it's probably misplaced in this case.
Browns ignoring the Kenny Pickett reality the Steelers learned already
If you need any indication of how the Steelers felt about a quarterback in Pickett that they selected in the first round, they moved on from him after two years, trading him across the state of Pennsylvania to the Eagles. They looked at 24 starts that resulted in just 4,474 yards, 13 touchdowns and 13 interceptions and realized that, clearly, he wasn't good enough. Frankly, they also realized they made a mistake.
When Wolfe speaks about guys like Mayfield and Darnold revitalizing their careers, that's a completely different equation than with Pickett. Those two players were the No. 1 and 2 picks, respectively, in their draft classes. Pickett was not only taken in the 20s, but he was the only quarterback taken in the first round. The Steelers were in a spot of desperation and were all but forced to burn a first-rounder on the hometown Pitt product.
It wasn't situation that didn't allow Pickett to thrive. Sure, the offensive line and pass-catcher group didn't help matters. But at the same time, Pickett simply didn't do himself any favors. He was over-drafted and not a first-round talent and found out quickly that the athleticism that helped him to win, but also forced him to develop some bad habits, wasn't good enough at the NFL level.
Kenny Pickett should be a Browns backup, nothing more
While I fully understand wanting to have secondary options beyond Flacco at this point in the veteran's career, the simple truth of the matter is that Pickett isn't viable competition. Steelers fans could quickly tell their rivals in the AFC North that the talent they're hoping to mine out of them simply isn't there. He might improve slightly, but not to the level of being a viable starting NFL quarterback.
Subsequently, Pickett should be considered the backup, and that's the scenario only for now. Again, the Browns have four quarterbacks competing right now between Flacco, Pickett and the two rookies. There's a good chance that neither Sanders nor Gabriel are ready to see the field immediately in their NFL careers, as you'd expect from Day 3 picks, but they are projects worth developing more so than Picket.
The best course of action would be to have Pickett as the break-in-case-of-emergency quarterback behind Flacco on the depth chart until the time that one of the rookies is ready to supplant him. But if you're a Browns fan, don't fall for any of the Pickett praise. History in Pittsburgh, to some degree and Philly, and the reality of the current situation is that it's all fool's gold.