Shedeur Sanders draft rumors: Browns 'worked hard to trade up' for Colorado QB
Shedeur Sanders was the second quarterback the Cleveland Browns selected in the 2025 NFL Draft, but the team's general manager, Andrew Berry, was aggressive in maneuvering to get the Colorado product.
Berry "worked hard to trade up" for Sanders, a source told ESPN's Daniel Oyefusi. The 38-year-old executive began trying to move up and get Sanders beginning late in the draft's fourth round.
Eventually, the Browns achieved their goal and were able to move up early in the fifth round to land Sanders with the 144th overall pick.
Why did the Browns target Sanders at that point? He simply became too good a value on which to pass. Oyefusi reports one Browns source believed "many teams had a Day 2 grade on Sanders" and that another was "surprised as Sanders fell into Day 3."
That made the selection a "no-brainer" for Berry, despite the fact the team had already chosen another quarterback, Dillon Gabriel, in Round 3 of the 2025 NFL Draft.
"We felt like it wasn't necessarily the plan going into the weekend to select two quarterbacks," Berry told reporters Saturday in a post-draft news conference. "But as we talk about, we do believe in best player available, we do believe in positional value, and we didn't necessarily expect him to be available in the fifth round. We love adding competition to every position room and adding him to compete with the guys that are already in there. We felt like that was the appropriate thing to do."
Sanders and Gabriel will now join Cleveland's quarterback competition, which is wide open with Deshaun Watson expected to miss most — if not all — of the 2025 NFL season after suffering two Achilles tears in just under a three-month span.
The two rookies will jockey for position with Joe Flacco and Kenny Pickett as the Browns seek a path forward following Watson's ill-fated, fully guaranteed contract.