The Cleveland Browns named Deshaun Watson their starting quarterback over Shedeur Sanders heading into the 2026 season, and the implications for Sanders’ future in Cleveland are dire.

The Browns selected Sanders with a 5th-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, and his inability to win the starting job over a quarterback who has been widely regarded as one of the worst starters in the NFL over the last couple of years tells you everything you need to know about where this is headed.

The verdict is already in

I think it’s over for Shedeur Sanders in Cleveland. Even if he plays a decent amount of the 2026 season, I think it’s still over.

The Browns are one of these teams that are conceivably, at least on paper, trying to find their future quarterback. The trading of Myles Garrett would obviously steer you towards that perspective.

If they are not certain today that Sanders is better than Watson, then they clearly don’t think highly enough of him to adequately go into the season and say they want a test period to determine whether he’s the long-term fixture at quarterback. They only have a 5th-round investment in him.

Cleveland is one of the highest-probability teams to be in the mix for Arch Manning, Dante Moore, or whoever else ends up at the top of the 2027 NFL Draft quarterback class. Even if Sanders goes on a tear over the last five or six games of the season where it looks like he might actually be good, I still don’t think that’s enough of a sample size.

There clearly isn’t a high enough opinion of him right now for the Browns to say they’re going to balk on a potential franchise-changing quarterback if they’re picking No. 1 overall, No. 2 overall, or anywhere near the top of the draft.

We know what the Haslams think of the Manning family. If Cleveland is picking No. 1 overall, and the choice is between a quarterback prospect of that caliber and a guy who couldn’t beat out a cooked Deshaun Watson, the decision makes itself.

Cleveland is years away from being years away

Whether it’s Watson or Sanders under center, the Browns are not going to be a good team in 2026. They are years away from being years away. That reality makes them a massive player in the 2027 NFL Draft quarterback market, and it makes Sanders’ path to proving himself as a long-term starter nearly impossible.

The 5th-round investment is the key detail here. It’s not like the Browns have to prove that Sanders can or can’t be a franchise quarterback because nobody is going to lose sleep over a 5th-round pick not panning out in a couple of years. The fact that he couldn’t firmly beat out a cooked Watson is a huge statement.

That alone, combined with the fact that Cleveland will almost certainly be in play for a top quarterback in the 2027 draft, makes this situation feel terminal.

When you frame it this way, it gets worse

The initial reaction to the idea that it’s over for Sanders might feel hasty, but when you actually think about what the bar to clear would be, it’s enormous. He would need to claim the starting role mid-season after failing to do so in the preseason, then play well enough on what we expect to be a bad team to convince the front office not to take a swing with premium draft capital in a class that has the potential to be deep and talented at quarterback.

That bar is extraordinarily high.

To paraphrase a friend who probably wouldn’t want to be named, but who texted a college group chat about this situation:

How bad do you have to be to lose your job to a sex pest who hates the fans of the team he plays for, who’s also clearly bad at football?

When you put it that way, it’s not good for Sanders. The Browns have every reason to let this season play out, bottom out, and swing for the fences in the 2027 NFL Draft. It is hard to imagine them going another route right now.