Cleveland Browns coach Kevin Stefanski revealed his early impression of former Colorado Buffaloes quarterback Shedeur Sanders in a recent appearance on ESPN Cleveland's "The Really Big Show" with Tony Rizzo and Aaron Goldhammer.
"Shedeur is a great kid," said Stefanski. "Whether it's a following that he's earned, I mean, that's something that he's done a great job of, interacting with fans. But he is a great, great kid. You guys will get to know him. He's working like crazy just like all the guys."
"These rookies, you know, my office is downstairs. They gotta walk by my office as they come in. They come in early, and Shedeur, just like all those guys, he's in there early, he's getting his work done. So he's working really, really hard," Stefanski continued.
The attention that Sanders receives has only been amplified by his slide in the draft combined with the fact that the Browns also selected former Oregon Ducks quarterback Dillon Gabriel in the same draft class. As a result, Cleveland's quarterback room is one of the most intriguing across the NFL with Sanders and Gabriel joining Deshaun Watson, Kenny Pickett, and Joe Flacco.
Stefanski was asked about managing the team's quarterback competition while also preparing the entire roster for the NFL season.
"I think you get into training camp and and obviously you're getting the team ready for week one. Those preseason games, so at Carolina, at (Philadelphia) and then home against the Rams. Those are all part of the evaluation for all of our players and certainly the quarterback position. So we really are focused mostly right now, Tony, on the next practices. The OTAs, the mini camps. We'll have a plan once we get into training camp, but that plan will be informed by the next month or so," said Stefanski.
As Stefanski mentions, the Browns will begin their first of three preseason games on Aug. 8, giving fans a chance to see Sanders and Gabriel compete against opposing defenses. First, Cleveland will hold OTAs, organized team activities, starting on May 27.
Outside of the organization, much has been made about the order in which quarterbacks are receiving reps, but Stefanski has remained consistent, saying that the line up of quarterbacks is not a reflection of their place on the depth chart. Instead, the Browns are simply trying to maximize the number of reps each player gets, without running the Cleveland wide receivers into the ground.
"I tell the players, 'Don't pay attention to where you are on line, because where you are on Tuesday, it may be different Wednesday.' So no, we don't pay close attention to that. Certainly you have to decide what order the guys are gonna go out, and sometimes it may be player, X, player Y, whatever it is. The big thing for us is making sure we give the guys enough reps that they need. . . . It's not gonna be a everybody gets 25 percent of these reps," said Stefanski.
