Shedeur Sanders Is Losing the Browns Quarterback Battle to Deshaun Watson and Cleveland’s Cap Sheet Is to Blame
Shedeur Sanders was supposed to be the next franchise quarterback in Cleveland. A month into voluntary minicamps and OTAs, he is the second-string guy. The starting job is Deshaun Watson’s to lose, and the reason is the same as it has been since the day the Browns signed him. The cap hit.
ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reported this week that Watson has the inside track for the starting job entering 2026. Sanders was the presumed frontrunner all offseason after winning that designation through last year’s three-quarterback rotation in Cleveland. He held it for less than four months.
What changed? Watson impressed in voluntary minicamp. He showed up healthy. He has hit it off with new offensive coordinator Todd Monken, who came over from the Ravens and brought the same scheme that turned Lamar Jackson into a passer. The fit makes sense for Watson too, even with his lengthy injury and off-field history.
The cap math made the decision before camp even started. Watson is carrying nearly a $45 million cap hit in 2026. The Browns cannot keep eating that money and watching him hold a clipboard. Sanders is on a rookie deal worth pennies. He can sit. He can develop. He can wait his turn.
That is how the math works for the team. The football is a different story. Sanders was the best of the Browns’ three starters in 2025, when he split snaps with Joe Flacco and Watson before Watson’s setback. He threw for 1,820 yards in his abbreviated rookie season with a TD-INT ratio that put him in the top half of starting NFL quarterbacks. He earned more than this.
Cleveland did not draft a quarterback in the first six rounds of the 2026 draft, which is supposed to be the tell that Sanders is the future. Instead, the Browns spent that draft capital on offensive line and defense. They went all in on a “win now” message that Watson is somehow still capable of cashing.
Todd Monken’s history makes this even messier. His Ravens offense was built for a mobile quarterback who could create off-script. Watson, post-Achilles and post-shoulder, is not that quarterback anymore. He is a pocket passer trying to recapture 2020. Sanders fits the scheme better. That is not the conversation Cleveland wants to have publicly, but the tape will tell on them eventually.
Browns owner Jimmy Haslam has to be pulling his hair out. He was the architect of the Watson trade in 2022, the one that sent three first-round picks and $230 million guaranteed to Houston. Every dollar of that contract is sunk cost. The football decision and the financial decision are pulling in opposite directions, and the financial side keeps winning.
Sanders will get his shot eventually. Watson is one bad game or one tweak away from being benched, and the moment that happens, Cleveland flips the keys. The Browns just cannot make it official until they are forced to.
For now, Sanders is doing what he has done his whole career. Working. Saying the right things. Waiting for the moment when Cleveland has no choice but to admit what the rest of the league already sees. The future is the rookie. The present is being held hostage by the past.
That moment is coming. The only question is whether the Browns season survives long enough to make the change matter.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
