The NFL can make for odd bedfellows and turn rivals into teammates, which sometimes leads to awkward working conditions.
New Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders will face that sort of situation when he begins offseason workouts with the club and veteran Joe Flacco, with whom Sanders will compete for the starting job.
Sanders is 17 years Flacco’s junior but finds himself teammates with the former Browns starter (2023) after Cleveland selected Sanders in the fifth round of last weekend’s draft. The team made that pick (No. 144) on Saturday, April 26. However, Sanders and several analysts believed there was a good chance the Browns would do so with the No. 2 overall selection in the first round on Thursday night.
Cameras were rolling on Sanders and his father/Colorado head coach Deion Sanders when Cleveland traded that pick to the Jacksonville Jaguars, who moved up to take Sanders’ former Buffaloes teammate Travis Hunter. The father-son duo had a light go at Flacco when the Browns passed on Sanders the first time, not knowing they would do so on five more occasions through the first four rounds before finally taking him off the board two days later.
“Who the Browns got?” Deion Sanders asked.
“I’ll tell you who they got!” Shedeur Sanders replied. “They got Joe Flacco!”
“Flacco my age!” Deion Sanders added, to which Shedeur Sanders smiled and lightly chuckled.
Shedeur Sanders Joins Browns Under Different Terms Than Most Expected
As far as jabs go, the barb at Flacco that came out of the conversation between Deion and Shedeur Sanders wasn’t overly malicious. Flacco, who will play next season at 40 years old, has joked about his age before and referenced jokes made by teammates — some of whom have been young enough to be his biological children.
However, it is difficult to watch the interaction between the Sanders family and not think they were at least a little put off that the Browns were comfortable betting on a 40-year-old who the franchise inked to a one-year deal in the offseason rather than spending the No. 2 pick on Sanders to come in and lead.
Now, Sanders and Flacco will spend the next several months competing for both the starting job and a roster spot in a crowded position group that currently houses five QBs.
Shedeur Sanders Has Advantage in Competition With Joe Flacco
Sanders has the advantage of entering the league just as Flacco is preparing to exit it, and as a recent draft pick Sanders is highly likely to make the roster and remain a member of it for at least a couple of years as Cleveland figures out what it has in the former five-star recruit.
Flacco, on the other hand, is in greater danger of losing his job during the preseason and/or hitting the trade block despite leading Cleveland to a playoff berth just two years ago and inking a $4 million deal to rejoin the team earlier this offseason.
“One interesting thing to consider about the Browns’ quarterback room, as Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders enter it, is how they have Joe Flacco and Kenny Pickett on level ground,” Albert Breer of SI wrote Tuesday. “The cost for Cleveland to walk away from either [Flacco or Pickett] at the end of camp is virtually equal — and puts the two in competition not just for the starting job, but a job, period.”
