Three reality checks for Shedeur Sanders fans before preseason

Three reality checks for Shedeur Sanders fans before preseason originally appeared on Athlon Sports.

Everyone that consumes sports at any level is a fan first. No matter how you got to where you're at currently, the love for the game is was keeps bringing you back. Reporters and analysts can turn that aspect off, but they wouldn’t be in those positions if they weren’t a fan before becoming a professional. It’s simply part of the equation to covering sports.

However, the scales tip when sound football analysis is replaced by fan-driven narratives, based in a subjective viewpoint. For personal context, I’ve covered Shedeur Sanders the entire time was at Colorado and before that have experience covering the Cleveland Browns. It's part of my background and where this career has taken me. I have every reason to hope for Shedeur’s success and expect it. Now, for some, the train has run off the rails.

These narratives simply don’t make sense. If you’re viewing this like a reality TV show, then some of the fan-driven talking points are valid. If the thought is Cleveland Browns coach Kevin Stefanski, team owner Jimmy Haslam, along with the rest of the QB room with Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett and Dillon Gabriel are nothing more than impediments to Sanders’ success, and he should be simply given the starting job based on how much you like him, then you are looking at Shedeur if this was 'Love Island'.

You have the person who you want to win, and everything else is an obstacle. These narratives seem to be spun by people who just want something to be mad about and someone to blame. While that is understandable given the draft slide, Shedeur being named QB1 is not a validation award for the draft slide he experienced.

The Browns should trade Shedeur Sanders so he can start elsewhere

This is delusional at the highest levels. Name the last NFL rookie quarterback who got traded before the start of the regular season? Like comedian Katt Williams once said, “Don’t worry, I’ll wait.” You won’t find one. The concept simply does not happen and it certainly wouldn’t be done for a player who teams passed on multiple times. John Elway's trade came shortly after the 1983 NFL Draft and Eli Manning was dealt on draft day in 2004. Both players never stepped foot in the facilities of the teams that drafted them. Here’s a different angle: Name the last non-first-round QB that was named QB1 before August? It’s been a while.

What team that didn’t draft Shedeur is going to bring him in as a projected starter?

Everyone that says the Browns should trade Sanders all come back to the same idea. This team should simply realize how great Shedeur is and give him the starting job with zero process. That’s not how this works. His eventual value as a starting QB does not dictate the immediate decision. Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, and Tom Brady weren’t expected to starter in July of Year One.

Most of the great QBs in this game recently were not getting first team reps early, they weren’t a lock to start, and they certainly weren’t given QB1 in July. The only signal-caller that applies to from this draft is the top-overall pick Cam Ward.

Fans and some in the national media are suggesting that an NFL franchise do something that is illogic, if not unheard of. Why? Because we like the Colorado Buffaloes, Deion Sanders, and Shedeur?

Again, that’s not how this works. There were less than six teams that had any reason to draft a quarterback to begin with in 2025. Trade him where? You think if he’s were traded to any team with a dedicated starter that those teams would just tell their starting QB to take a seat for the guy that has a massive fanbase? Some teams would’ve already put him on the back burner after the double speeding tickets. Make it make sense.

The Browns are setting Sanders up for failure

You can’t make this stuff up. This is how the bulk of the narratives are not coming from a place of real football knowledge or process. It comes from a place of fan loyalty and bias. If the Browns were setting Shedeur up for failure, they would’ve thrown everything, including the kitchen sink, at him and had him take tons of snaps vs. the first-team defense in the various minicamps.

By the way, Shedeur has excelled with multiple opportunities. This has nothing to do with his talent. It’s too much too fast, for almost anyone. The Browns offense is dramatically different from the 2024 Buffs offense from a scheme standpoint. Then the unrelenting narrative no one wants would be that the owners were right and he’s just not that good. All because they fed him too much too fast.

The mere fact that they are working with him on operational aspects of the position, various nuances within the playbook, pre-snap reads, in-play reads, audibles and shifts should tell you emphatically the Browns are doing the exact opposite of setting him up for failure. The increase in individual work and the lack of early first team reps reinforces that not only are they not setting him up to fail, but they are setting him to be as successful as possible when he gets into regular season games. The abnormally large sized elephant in the room also comes down to historical context. The Browns are the last franchise someone should want to rush a rookie QB to start.

The Browns are just using Shedeur for jersey sales and clicks

The jersey sales are completely the result of the fans. Only a biased fan would think a team will use a draft asset to increase ticket and/or merch sales with no on-field potential. One is not related to the other. There is a marketing department to be sure, but Stefanski has nothing to do with that. The coach doesn’t make more money if people buy Browns gear. The job of winning football games is not made easier if 300,000 additional people view their Instagram. It comes down to Shedeur is not QB1 yet. So that must mean he’s being unfairly slighted. Shedeur can be a great future starting NFL prospect, not be getting first team reps, and both of those ideas can exist without a nefarious agenda.

As a matter of context, it means quite the opposite. If they were using Shedeur for sales and clicks, you would see him everywhere. Not just on the Browns team shop or in random practice footage videos. His image and likeness would be literally everywhere. For example, Shedeur’s exposure off the field is comparably small to that of Johnny Manziel, who was a first-round disaster. You’re confusing an NFL franchise that has negative intentions with one that isn’t stupid. It doesn’t matter if a team had a long snapper with a massive fanbase, to not highlight him would be categorically ignorant.

The bottom line with these narratives is that a lot of people are huge fans of a player. That player is in the middle of a competition and a period of learning new factors to the position he already plays. Cleveland plans to run 12 personnel as almost their default base formation. Colorado rarely utilized tight ends, much less ran two as weapons in their base offense. Every team has a process. No team is going to ignore what make them successful and bend the knee to fan popularity.

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Shedeur not being proclaimed QB1 in a timeline his fans would accept is not evidence of anything negative. He is not being disrespected, used, or exploited. The draft slide is one conversation, but what has happened since he was drafted, is not the same conversation.

No team in the history of professional sports has had more issues with one position than the Cleveland Browns at Quarterback. It’s been almost 35 years since the Browns had a consistently good signal-caller. They have invented ways to ruin quarterbacks. If this is handled properly and Shedeur gets the opportunity to ramp up naturally to his first start, he will have the potential to completely reverse the fortunes of that position for Cleveland.

If Sanders truly aims to retire on his father’s level, there is no faster path to doing so than being the QB that made Cleveland a winning franchise again. They also are facing a murderer’s row of teams in the first four games. No matter how confident, no Sanders fan should want him facing Cincinnati, Baltimore, Green Bay and Detroit right out of the gate.

These are soap opera caliber narratives. Attempting to connect dots that don’t exist using only a small portion of the available information. Sanders and his fanbase aren’t exactly aligned. They are fighting battles for him that they weren't asked to fight. A great example is the jersey.

What seemed like a million people demanding a team should force a veteran (who secured the number before Shedeur was drafted) to give Shedeur his custom No. 2. Shedeur had to make a public appeal to the fans to stop fighting for the jersey number. He literally said, “I’m twelve now, if you call me two, you’re disrespecting me.” They want him to be given the job. Shedeur wants to earn it. They demand he be the starter immediately. Shedeur has publicly acknowledged that there are aspects he needs to and wants to work on. They are frustrated he wasn’t getting first team reps. Shedeur does not seem frustrated in the least.

Related: Ex-NFL executive says Shedeur Sanders is "Ice skating uphill" in Cleveland

The Shedeur fans and the adoptive family he has nationwide are a great group. I have met many of them that travel to see Colorado play. They are a valued part of the large fanbase. Their efforts are commendable.

However, the ‘we’re just here for Shedeur’ crowd is doing more damage than looking out for their ‘nephew’. They are inventing conspiracy theories based on details that have nothing to do with the process of football. Shedeur is literally doing everything that isn’t driving related, right. His attitude, work ethic, poise, media savvy, winning over the locker room and especially his Fun Fest event for the people of the Kinsman neighborhood of east Cleveland, are all factors Coach Prime and all the Sanders fans should be exceedingly proud of.

NFL training camp is not a race. Teams will do their due diligence regardless. There’s no play clock. No need to rush Shedeur just for an Adam Schefter tweet that will excite fans for 10 minutes. Rushing a QB you like to start is a recipe for disaster. If anyone has learned that lesson, it’s Cleveland.

This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Aug 1, 2025, where it first appeared.