If chronology has anything to do with the QB competition inside the Cleveland Browns organization, then Kenny Pickett should be the favorite heading into training camp.
Head coach Kevin Stefanski’s offense is an ideal fit for Pickett, a former first-round pick of the Pittsburgh Steelers entering the final year of his rookie contract.
The Browns targeted Pickett via the trade market, securing him from the Philadelphia Eagles for a fifth-round draft pick and backup quarterback/former fifth-rounder Dorian Thompson-Robinson. That’s not an overly impressive price, but Cleveland still spent more in terms of player, draft capital and salary combined on the 27-year-old signal-caller than the $4.25 million it shelled out for Joe Flacco in free agency ($3 million guaranteed), the late third-round pick the team used on Dillon Gabriel and the early fifth-rounder the franchise spent to acquire Shedeur Sanders.
And, because it’s not for nothing, Pickett was the guy the Browns looked at first.
Former Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh cited a source inside Cleveland’s organization on June 25 when he asserted that Stefanski and company were stacking the deck for Pickett and Gabriel, despite declaring publicly that it was a four-man race for the job.
“I don’t know how this is a fair competition,” Houshmandzadeh said. “I was told by somebody in the building, who is not a player, that it is really coming down to Kenny Pickett or Dillon Gabriel.”
But Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com got real about Pickett’s performance via the “Orange and Brown Talk” podcast on Tuesday, July 15, indicating that whatever Pickett’s claim to the QB1 job was coming into the team this spring based on his pedigree, style of play and the Browns’ investment in him, his chance to start is going to be on the line early in training camp.
Browns Likely to Decide on QB1 Early in Training Camp
Cabot flatly called out Pickett for a subpar spring that failed to live up to team expectations.
“We did not see it in spring ball. You didn’t see it. I didn’t see it. If we are saying that we did, we’re kidding ourselves,” Cabot said. “We didn’t see him pop. He needs to pop in training camp.”
Camp opens for rookies on July 18 and veterans four days later. Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated reported Monday that given the brutal early schedule the Browns face, leadership is likely to decide on a QB1 quickly after camp begins and sort out the rest of the hierarchy with relative haste.
“Time is short. Reps in camp will be valuable. Bottom line: It wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the team to drag things out,” Breer wrote. “To that end, you’ll probably be able to see where things stand early on. Flacco will be in the running. Pickett almost certainly will be, too.”
Kenny Pickett Flashing Signs of Struggle in Browns’ QB-Friendly Offense
The speed with which the Browns must make their decision doesn’t favor Pickett given one of the specific problems he’s facing.
Pickett is 6-foot, 3-inches tall and has a strong arm. Stefanski’s quarterback-friendly offense relies heavily on the concepts of play-action and simplified reads that should translate into higher-percentage throws for any quarterback processing what’s in front of him relatively well.
However, Cabot pointed out that this has been problematic for Pickett to this point in the process.
“You are going to have to play fast and furious, and you’ve got to be able to run this offense and not be thinking about it,” Cabot continued. “And that’s what I wonder when he talks about, ‘Oh, I’m just getting to know the terminology and you know, I’m honing my pocket presence and play action,’ all those kinds of things. Then you can’t be learning on the job.”
Should Pickett fail to win the starting gig, it’s more likely he hits the trade block at some point ahead of the November deadline. Flacco would then become the odds-on favorite to start Week 1.
In any scenario, Gabriel and Sanders are more likely to get their shots later in the season once the stakes for Cleveland are player development and information gathering ahead of the 2026 draft, in which the Browns own two first-round picks.
