Cleveland Browns quarterback Dillon Gabriel will make his fourth start of the season on Sunday when the Browns face the New England Patriots.
It hasn’t been the smoothest of starts to Gabriel’s career,
although he did pick up his first victory in last week’s 31-6 defeat of the Miami Dolphins.
Gabriel has yet to commit a turnover – a nice change from the six turnovers committed by former starting quarterback Joe Flacco in the first four games – and has thrown three touchdown passes. However, he has also completed less than 60 percent of his passes in two of his starts and is just 10-of-30 on throws of 10 yards or more.
Basically, Gabriel has played like a rookie starter who can use all the first-team practice reps he can get.
Sunday’s game against the Patriots is a big one for Gabriel, with Cleveland’s bye week coming up. If he struggles, the noise will intensify for the Browns to turn things over to Shedeur Sanders, the most talked about fifth-round draft choice in the 89 years that the league has been holding a draft of college players.
Everyone may need to hold off a bit when it comes to Sanders, however, according to owner Jimmy Haslam, who was asked about the quarterback situation this week while attending the NFL’s fall meeting.
As much as fans and the media like to believe that Haslam, or better yet, Paul DePodesta and his devilish analytics, are telling the coaches what to do, Haslam told NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport and Mike Garafolo that “the coaches will decide” if/when Sanders is ready to play.
And in one of the wisest things he may have said as owner, Haslam pointed out that three games is not enough time to determine that it is time to throw Gabriel on the trash heap:
“Dillon has played three games, and that’s not a great sample (size). 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 to continue to work with both of those guys.”
The Browns have already made one switch at the quarterback position and seen the offense continue to struggle. It has not all been the fault of Flacco and Gabriel, but with a surplus of quarterbacks on the roster, swapping quarterbacks was an easy and inevitable move.
So, while the club is in no rush to make yet another switch at the position, Gabriel needs to start showing a more productive hand, or else his time is going to run out in the coming weeks.
