Shedeur Sanders is not the starting quarterback for the Cleveland Browns. The team's decision to stick with Joe Flacco was one that always made sense, even if it was also always the least exciting option. The veteran offers more stability than either Sanders or fellow rookie Dillon Gabriel. However, the fact that he's still "just a backup" in Cleveland doesn't change the fact that turning down the Baltimore Ravens' offer to draft him was still the right and, whether you want to admit it or not, the smart call.
Fueling the fire that always seems to surround Sanders, ESPN insider Adam Schefter reported on Sunday ahead of the Week 2 slate that the Ravens were interested in drafting the Colorado quarterback in the fifth round before the Browns came on the clock. However, when Baltimore got in contact with Sanders, he told the organization that he didn't want to be selected to be the clear and obvious backup for franchise star Lamar Jackson, and preferred a clearer path to playing time.
Now, the obvious reaction from most people is to clown on Sanders for that. After all, he went to a worse overall team situation in Cleveland only to still be the backup.
That's just cherry-picking the facts of the situation, however. Yes, the optics of him still being a backup (QB3 on the depth chart behind Flacco and Gabriel, too) are a shade ironic, I'll give you that. At the same time, let's not look at these two situations like they're even remotely the same, and like Sanders didn't ultimately accomplish what he was looking to do: Giving himself a more reasonable path to getting on the field.
The Browns offer Shedeur Sanders more opportunity than the Ravens ever will
Flacco is a steady veteran hand with familiarity under Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski, but he's also 40 years old and a stopgap solution in Cleveland at best. Meanwhile, Jackson is a full 12 years younger, entering his age-28 season as a perennial MVP candidate that is the lifeblood and heartbeat of the Ravens.
If you're Shedeur Sanders, the choice between those two is obvious. Perhaps he overestimated more than slightly how ready he was to start in the NFL. That's possible, and also might even be likely. At the same time, when you compare those two QB situations we're talking about, they couldn't be more different.
In a world where Sanders goes to Baltimore, he has essentially a 0% chance of winning the starting job as a rookie. With the Browns, there was at least a marginal shot, even if it wasn't as real as it was sometimes painted to be throughout training camp and the preseason. However, when you look beyond just this offseason and training camp, maybe even later in this season, and that changes dramatically.
Shedeur Sanders' story would've been DOA in Baltimore
With Jackson, the Ravens are going to be a playoff contender virtually every year. Not only was there not a chance for Sanders to start this year, that's probably true for the next decade as long as Baltimore has a healthy QB1 that's one of the best players in the sport. For the Browns, that's simply not the case.
Long-term, Flacco's age and the current situation with the Browns means that Sanders could legitimately be in a battle as soon as next season for the starting job, his second year in the league. Flacco and Deshaun Watson aren't really considered to be in the picture beyond the 2025 campaign, and even if Cleveland drafts another signal-caller, Sanders would still have the advantage of having been in the system longer — and we know, despite all of the extracurriculars, that Shedeur is quite talented.
Even using a more focused lens on this season, though, the opportunities are still more abundant. Flacco is a floor raiser for the Browns at quarterback, but there's not a reasonable soul on the planet who believes that this team is going anywhere in terms of wins and postseason contention. When we get to the back half of the season and Cleveland is out of contention, that too could give Sanders an opportunity to step in and show what he's made of.
Look, I get that it's easy to poke fun at Sanders still trying to call the shots when he was getting a draft call in the fifth round. It's not only somehow expected given everything we saw from his draft process, but it's also a shocking lack of self-awareness in some aspects as well. At the same time, anyone blaming Sanders for that decision is also ignoring a lot of the facts.
As crazy as this phrase is, the Browns are a better situation for Shedeur Sanders than the Ravens ever would've been, particularly when you're talking about the opportunities that could await the rookie.