Browns Quarterbacks Become Butt of ESPN Joke

The Cleveland Browns have made a mess under center. The Deshaun Watson trade and extension are reason enough for that description, but the 2024 season epitomized poor quarterbacking. As the Browns enter 2025, Watson is the only holdover in a five-man quarterback room, but little has changed.

Cleveland, despite signing Joe Flacco in free agency, trading for Kenny Pickett, and drafting Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders, has little clarity on offense.

There is no clear-cut best option to start. There was seemingly no strategy behind taking two quarterbacks in a three-round span. And there is little hope of the Browns being much better in the fall.

Subsequently, the Browns were mocked for having the offseason’s worst quarterback strategy by ESPN.

“What makes this even more complicated is that the quarterbacks aren't stylistically similar. Flacco thrived two years ago as an under-center, play-action threat in coach Kevin Stefanski's offense, providing it with a high-risk, high-reward downfield passer,” Bill Barnwell wrote.

“Pickett has worked out of shotgun and has won games by mostly avoiding big mistakes. Gabriel worked out of a spread offense at Oregon and was more of a distributor who threw accurate underneath passes without scaring teams as a downfield thrower. Sanders was in an RPO-heavy offense and played hero ball far too often when asked to drop back behind a dismal offensive line.”

The Cleveland faithful know that head coach Kevin Stefanski can elevate a passer by making his life easier. In another disastrous chapter of Browns history, Stefanski has retained the respect of the fanbase. He has won Coach of the Year twice and a playoff game once. He may somehow survive this storm.

But with no string to attach one acquisition to another, Cleveland’s plans are hard to follow. Is the offense built around Flacco, whose play sent the Browns to the playoffs in 2023? Does it give either rookie quarterback a chance to play to their strengths? Can it endure the mixing and matching of concepts as the Browns encounter adversity?

“Instead, the question might be how long any of these guys keeps the job,” Barnwell added. “Nothing about the cash spent or the draft capital used suggests the Browns are committed to any of these quarterbacks in 2026. … They might have a situation in which their backups are tantalizing enough to get on the field without being good enough to stay there.”

At this point, the only thing inevitable about Cleveland’s quarterbacks is that multiple of them will see time in 2025. Maybe Watson misses the entire year with his torn Achilles. Perhaps one of the rookies doesn’t earn a Sunday start. But this room is too crowded, too unstable, and too unproven to trust, regardless of how one views Stefanski.

With Cam Ward off the board, the Browns were never in great position to answer their offensive questions in 2025. Attempting to do so with five limited quarterbacks, laden with reasons for pessimism, might prove to be the only truly unacceptable answer.