Cleveland Browns quarterback Dillon Gabriel never really had a chance in his rookie season.
Selected in the third round of the 2025 NFL Draft, fans quickly declared that the pick was a mistake as Gabriel would have been “nothing more than an undrafted free agent” if only general manager Andrew Berry was not a bumbling fool.
During training camp, Gabriel was derided by some in the media as being worse than one of the team’s ballboys. Which is odd, since Gabriel was Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year
as a senior, and, as “everyone knows,” the Big Ten is the greatest football conference ever assembled.
Once it became clear that Joe Flacco Part 2 was not going to end well, the Browns turned to Gabriel to make the start in Week 5, on the road in London, no less, against the Minnesota Vikings.
Practice reps had been minimal to non-existent for Gabriel through the opening four weeks of the season, the offensive line was falling apart, and the wide receivers were struggling to meet minimum standards*.
So it was no surprise that Gabriel struggled in his six starts, helping the Browns win just one game, and completing less than 60 percent of his passes.
Fast forward a year, and with former head coach Kevin Stefanski now in Atlanta, the expectation among many was that Gabriel and Stefanski would be reunited with the Falcons since Gabriel was “Stefanski’s pick” from the draft class.
A funny thing happened while fans and media were loading the moving fan and pointing Gabriel southward, however.
The Browns are about to embark on one of the most uninspiring quarterback battles of the summer as head coach Todd Monken will choose between Deshaun Watson and Shedeur Sanders as the starting quarterback for Monken’s first season as an NFL head coach.
Behind that dynamic duo is rookie sixth-round selection Taylen Green, who is very much not ready to see the field regularly anytime soon.
Which means that Gabriel may live to see another season in Cleveland as a “plug-and-play” quarterback who can step in and at least hold down the fort in an emergency. That is according to Mary Kay Cabot at cleveland.com, who pumped the brakes a little bit on Gabriel’s departure:
Gabriel has had a very nice spring, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up as the third QB on the Browns roster. Gabriel is an excellent processor and game manager, and those traits were on display in Organized Team Activities and minicamp. The hard part for Gabriel is that he hasn’t gotten a chance to work with the first-team offense in camp to show how far he’s come since last year.
The truth is, Gabriel could step in and start a game for the Browns if necessary, and will probably fare much better with an overhauled offensive line and upgraded supporting cast.
The big question heading into camp at this spot is if the Browns feel Taylen Green is ready to step in and handle some of the critical situations the Browns would use him in, such as short-yardage, goal-line, and four-minute. If Gabriel earns the QB3 spot, the Browns might try to get Green through to the practice squad. If they feel comfortable with Green, they could always try to trade Gabriel around the cutdown date, Aug. 30.
There are still several weeks, training camp practices, and preseason snaps to go before Berry and Monken have to decide what to do with Gabriel. And, all kidding aside, the Falcons are a team that makes sense, given the familiarity with Stefanski’s system and a quarterback room in Atlanta that is not exactly robust.
But this is still the Browns and the quarterbacks, so strange things are bound to happen. Which means no one should be surprised if Gabriel once again finds himself on the field in orange and brown this fall.
*If those excuses can be used to explain one rookie’s shortcomings, surely they should apply to the other rookie quarterback?
