The Cleveland Browns decided to take Dillon Gabriel in the third round of the 2025 NFL Draft, a move that, to this day, doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense. We can question a lot of what the Browns have done in recent years, and we’d be going down a long list of why they’ve made some of the wrong moves, but the decision to take Gabriel just happened to be one of the more interesting ones.
Right now, the Browns still don’t have their franchise quarterback, but are hopeful that one of Shedeur Sanders or Deshaun Watson can eventually be that guy.
Watson has proven throughout his career that he can be a franchise quarterback, while Sanders didn’t do a whole lot in his rookie season, though I don’t think that’s really much of a blame to him.
Regardless, there doesn’t seem to be a feeling that Gabriel is getting much love from the Browns right now, and head coach Todd Monken pretty much admitted that with his latest comments.
“In a perfect world, you’d love to have your starting quarterback, right?” Monken told reporters. “I’m not sure we’ll be there, I’m just not. I think both quarterbacks have played well enough where we haven’t really been in pads. We haven’t played any games yet. Haven’t really got to that point yet. Every day I kind of lean one way or the other with quarterbacks.
“I’m fired up by the quarterbacks,” Monken said. “I just tell you, we got two starting level quarterbacks. We really do.”
To hear him say that they have two starting quarterbacks when he’s speaking about Sanders and Watson pretty much guarantees that he’s not going to give Gabriel a chance.
Anything can happen in the NFL, and there’s definitely a chance that Gabriel gets an opportunity to play because of some injuries and other factors, but he’s not going to be the guy who gets all the opportunities seemingly in training camp, which is unfortunate news for the Oregon product.