Shedeur Sanders Out with Back Injury vs. Patriots as Zappe QB2 for Browns' Gabriel

Cleveland Browns backup quarterback Shedeur Sanders is inactive for Sunday's matchup against the New England Patriots with a back injury. Bailey Zappe will serve as the No. 2 option behind Dillon Gabriel in the game.

"Dillon has played three games, and that's not a great sample (size)," team owner Jimmy Haslam told NFL Network's Ian Rapoport and Mike Garafolo on Saturday. "And one of them was in a monsoon. You could say he played two games. Shedeur's making progress in practice, so we're going continue to work with both of those guys."

He also defended Sanders from some of the outside perceptions regarding the young quarterback.

"Listen, he's a serious football player, and inside the building, there's no noise," he told The Athletic's Dianna Russini. "He comes to work every day just like everybody else, and he's trying to get better as a football player."

Cleveland's quarterback room has been the subject of much fascination since the team's bizarre offseason approach to the position, which included signing Joe Flacco, trading for Kenny Pickett and drafting both Gabriel and Sanders. All of that, of course, followed the disastrous Deshaun Watson era, whose acquisition and fully guaranteed contract will be remembered as one of the worst decisions in NFL history.

The Browns entered the season with Flacco as the starter, traded Pickett and decided to move on from the struggling Flacco midseason, trading him as well to the Cincinnati Bengals. Gabriel was promoted to starter, Sanders to backup and the Browns have the rest of the season to evaluate that pair before deciding if they need to draft another option.

Gabriel has been solid if unspectacular in his three starts, leading the team to a 1-2 record. For the season he's thrown for 546 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions, though he's completed just 59.8 percent of his passes.

And then there's Sanders, who hasn't seen the field since the preseason. The much-hyped former Colorado quarterback fell to the fifth round of the NFL draft and has continued to be the source of near-constant external attention, and has mostly handled it well with the occasional bizarre exceptions.

At this point, it's hard to imagine Sanders playing much this season unless Gabriel struggles badly. But there's plenty of NFL season remaining.