With the 2025 NFL Draft approaching, analysts still have plenty of time to dive into the film and let their takes cook a little longer.
Few, if any, are better at draft analysis than Todd McShay, who recently explained why he believes Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders makes the most sense for the Cleveland Browns with the No. 2 overall pick.
McShay compared Sanders to veteran NFL quarterbacks who have had success under Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski.
“Shedeur’s skill set is strikingly similar to the handful of QBs that Stefanski has won a lot of games with in the past, including Case Keenum (who won 11 games for the [Minnesota] Vikings with Stefanski as QB coach in 2017), Kirk Cousins (whose Vikings team won 10 games under Stefanski as offensive coordinator in 2019), and most recently, a late-career Joe Flacco, who went 4-1 as the Browns starter in 2023,” McShay wrote in The McShay Report.
Many recent mock drafts have Sanders slipping down the board ever since the 2025 NFL Scouting Combine.
That might not matter to the Browns, who have arguably the league’s most unenviable quarterback situation with Deshaun Watson’s twice-torn Achilles and significant salary cap charge, and Kenny Pickett now on the roster following a trade with the Philadelphia Eagles.
Cleveland had the worst scoring offense in the league last season, averaging 15.2 points per game under four starting quarterbacks, and the front office has a lot of work to do between now and the draft to decide if Sanders can be the savior.
If the Browns don’t draft him, it could set the franchise back years, and no amount of success edge rusher Abdul Carter or two-way star Travis Hunter could have would make up for it, unless the Browns somehow strike gold on a quarterback with one of their later picks.
