Last week, Shedeur Sanders got an opportunity he could not have expected.
Due to injuries and the Cleveland Browns’ desire to not overextend Joe Flacco in the preseason, he got to start the teams’ first preseason game. That announcement came before he had ever taken a snap with the first-team offense. It was fortunate. And Sanders played well, with more than two million people watching on NFL Network. He looked sharp despite a difficult situation. He threw two excellent touchdown passes. Nike tweeted out an ad with him celebrating one of the scores. He was the talk of the NFL world.
And then the fortune swung the other way.
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Sanders suffered an oblique injury during warmups before a joint practice against the Philadelphia Eagles on Wednesday. He didn’t practice Wednesday, won’t practice Thursday and is unlikely to play in Saturday’s preseason game, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
Sanders is considered day to day, which isn’t bad news. But Sanders doesn’t have days to waste.
Shedeur Sanders missing time is a major blow
Sanders’ problem, even after playing well in last week’s preseason game, is that he started at the bottom of the depth chart.
Sanders had been fourth in the Browns’ pecking order all offseason and then to start camp. Injuries helped him get a temporary boost, but there was no indication that he had permanently moved ahead of Pickett, Gabriel and definitely not Flacco, the presumed Week 1 starter.
But Sanders could have made a case to be higher than fourth before the season started, if he played in the final two preseason games like he did the first one. It was hard to not wonder if Sanders should begin the season as high as second on the depth chart, based on how he played. Many of his supporters would argue he should be even higher, though that has always been unrealistic.
The Browns have just two preseason games remaining. Sanders won’t play in one of them. Oblique injuries can linger, so there’s no guarantee he’ll be ready by the final preseason game on Aug. 23, or that Sanders would be healthy enough to play his best.
It’s possible we’ve seen the last of Sanders in game action until … well, who knows when.
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Sanders’ opportunities running out
That first preseason performance happened, and the highlights from it won’t be forgotten. But for a player who already had limited reps in practice, a little more than a half of preseason football probably won’t be enough to trust him to start regular-season games early on.
And there aren’t many other opportunities ahead. Teams start focusing on the regular season as soon as they can, and that doesn’t include normal practice reps for a fifth-round rookie quarterback. He could have some practice squad reps, but that only goes so far.
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The Browns will have to figure out what to do at quarterback. Keeping four on the active roster is unconventional, but it would make sense for the Browns this season, with two drafted rookie quarterbacks along with two veterans. The team will need to figure out the order of those four quarterbacks, and at least Sanders has played some in the preseason. Pickett and Gabriel didn’t play last week, though both practiced against the Eagles on Wednesday.
It’s not an easy evaluation. Sanders’ chances of playing well in the final two preseason games and perhaps forcing his way up the depth chart were cut in half, at least, with Wednesday’s injury. It’s not impossible for Sanders to carve out a path for himself to start games this season as a rookie. But it got a lot tougher.
