In the 2025 NFL Draft, outside of Cam Ward, the Pittsburgh Steelers had their pick of the litter at quarterback in the first round. However, they opted not to target that position until the sixth round. Many people expected them to take Shedeur Sanders, but they didn’t even take him on Day 3. Instead, Sanders landed with the Cleveland Browns, falling all the way to the fifth round, and Aaron Rodgers is scheduled to be the Steelers’ starter. Stephen A. Smith likes that signing on the condition that Sanders doesn’t look better than Rodgers this year.
“If that damn Shedeur Sanders, who dropped to the fifth round and the 144th overall pick, ends up being better this season, assuming he’s gonna get the QB1 spot and I don’t know that’s gonna happen because they drafted a couple of quarterbacks,” Smith said recently on his podcast, The Stephen A. Smith Show. “And they already had quarterbacks in that stable in Cleveland.
“I’m telling you right now, if Shedeur Sanders wins this job and he’s the starting quarterback for the Cleveland Browns and he goes out there and he balls, I am going to be pissed because the Steelers could’ve drafted him.”
At the moment, the Browns have five quarterbacks on their roster. That includes Deshaun Watson, who likely won’t play this year due to injury, Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett, Dillon Gabriel, and Sanders. It’s unclear which one of them will be the Browns’ Week 1 starter.
However, none of those players are expected to be quality starters this year. Flacco is 40 years old, and while he might be fine starting for a few games, he’s far from being who he was with the Baltimore Ravens. Pickett flamed out with the Steelers, spending last year as a backup with the Philadelphia Eagles. Reports from his time with the Browns so far this year do not sound promising, either.
Gabriel is also a rookie, with the Browns selecting him in the third round. He’s undersized for the NFL, so he might struggle transitioning from college. That gives Sanders a path to being Cleveland’s starter. If he’s actually better than Rodgers, then that shouldn’t be difficult.
Rodgers is past his prime, but he looked like he had good football left in him last year. Sanders is a Day 3 pick that hasn’t even played in an NFL game yet. Unless Rodgers crashes and burns hard, it feels unlikely that Sanders will have a better 2025 season than Rodgers. The rookie needs to focus on winning the starting job in Cleveland first, though.
It’s not like the Steelers were the only team that passed on Sanders, either. The Browns even drafted a different quarterback before they took Sanders. Some people expected him to go in the first round, but clearly, the NFL had a low opinion of him. Maybe he’ll be better than Rodgers this year, but the chances of that happening feel slim. Perhaps Pittsburgh will find its long-term solution at quarterback in 2026.
