CFB Coach Says Shedeur Sanders Will Make Browns Better But Concerned About QB Room

One college football coach has mixed feelings about Shedeur Sanders winding up on the Cleveland Browns.

"I see him competing hard on the grass, trying to win the job, making the team better, but making that room better?" the coach said to ESPN's Adam Rittenberg.

A different coach used the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as an example to suggest having Sanders as an understudy may not be worth it.

"If you're Tampa and you've got Baker Mayfield, do you want the noise associated with [Sanders] being your backup quarterback?" the coach said. "There's a lot of teams that don't need quarterbacks."

This was one point The Athletic's Jeff Howe made midway through the draft when Sanders was tumbling down the board. Having a famous backup can cause some headaches because it risks undermining the starter.

In the case of the Browns, the expectations for Kenny Pickett and Joe Flacco aren't very high, and the ship has probably sailed on Deshaun Watson ever being a franchise cornerstone.

Still, head coach Kevin Stefanski and general manager Andrew Berry can expect to field questions about Sanders throughout the offseason. A lot of people will want to know how he's progressing and whether he's moving up the depth chart.

Those questions could continue in the regular season after Stefanski has named a starter.

All this for a player who could plausibly be the third QB and not a regular member of the game-day roster.

Sanders can do all of the right things on the practice field and say all of the right things behind the scenes, and he might nonetheless cast a wide shadow over his fellow quarterbacks in Cleveland.