The NFL is a harsh environment, even for the game’s best players.
But that is especially true if you are a rookie backup quarterback.
No matter if you are the No. 1 overall selection entering a nationally
televised game and leading your team to a historic victory despite having no practice reps, or a fifth-round selection entering a regionally televised game and putting up a performance not seen in the NFL in more than 40 years, you have one job.
Be ready because you never know when you will be called upon to play.
That lesson was on full display Sunday afternoon at Huntington Bank Field, when the Cleveland Browns opened the second half of the game with Shedeur Sanders at quarterback because Dillon Gabriel had suffered a concussion.
Sanders went on to complete just four-of-16 passes for 47 yards, threw an interception, took a pair of sacks, and finished with a passer rating of 13.5.
To put that into perspective:
- It is the lowest passer rating by a player with 15-plus pass attempts in their debut since Cleveland’s Brandon Weeden posted a 5.1 in Week 1 of the 2012 season.
- It was the 187th time since 1970 that a quarterback attempted at least 16 passes in their first game, according to The Athletic, and only one – Scott Stankavage with the Denver Broncos in 1984 – completed as few as four passes.
Naturally, the performance led to a stream of excuses for why Sanders struggled in the game, many of which focused on the idea that head coach Kevin Stefanski should have “given him practice reps during the week.”
The funny thing is, that is not how the NFL works, and the Browns should not be held to a standard that no other NFL team has to follow.
Josh Dobbs, who spent time with the Browns in training camp in 2023 before being traded to the Arizona Cardinals in a move that struck Browns Town to the core of its soul, knows a thing or two about being a backup quarterback.
Now with the New England Patriots, the sixth team he has been with in the regular season, Dobbs was profiled by The Athletic about what a backup quarterback does all week, knowing that they may never play in the upcoming game.
And guess what? Getting practice reps is not part of the equation:
“Some positions can just show up on Wednesday at 8 a.m. like, ‘All right, here we go for the week.’ But if you’re doing that as a quarterback, you’re always playing catch-up. And especially as the No. 2, since you don’t know if you’re going to get (practice) reps that week.”
Don’t just take Dobbs’ word about it, as several former players also weighed in via social media about what it is like to be a backup, starting with Luke McCown, a fourth-round draft pick by the Browns in 2004 who played for five teams across a 10-year career:
I think there is a massive misunderstanding about how an NFL practice is structured.
The only time mid-round pick rookies and backups get meaningful reps is in training camp, and they are never with the ones unless you are competing or starting that next preseason game.
Regular season practices have 10-12 plays per period … that’s team run, team pass, team blitz pickup, and some teams still do a 7v7 period.
But for the most part, that’s 30-40 live full speed reps of the actual gameplan practiced on Wed, Thursday and Friday in the NFL. These all go to the starting QB … he’s the one that has to be to get ready. And if healthy, he gets to make that call.
Absolutely reps help. Absolutely he’ll be better with a full week of prep.
But those are the hands as backups we’re dealt, and in those moments and we have to make the most of them.
SS will be better with reps for sure. But if DG remains the guy, the facts of life in an NFL practice still remains for us backups.
Maybe you care not for what a career backup has to say, but what about Kurt Warner, who started his Hall of Fame career as a backup in St. Louis:
Everywhere I was, the backup rarely got #1 reps – I wanted all the reps when I was #1 and if backup got any it was a couple at the end of different periods!
It is not just quarterbacks who know things, as Breiden Fehoko, a defensive tackle who spent three years with the Los Angeles Chargers, dropped in with some harsh truth:
For those of you who have never been part of an organization, you need to understand how shit works. You don’t just give all your QBs reps in practice. Your starter takes all the starter reps, and your backups run the scout team. That’s why Tom Brady harps on mental reps. The starter always takes starter reps ESPECIALLY at QB.
Obviously, the more a player can put time on task, the better the chances they can find success, and with Gabriel in the concussion protocol, Sanders should finally receive those coveted first-team reps this week as the Browns prepare to face the Las Vegas Raiders.
But the reality remains that the NFL is a harsh place, one where backups have to find their way to improve, and it won’t come at the expense of the starters.
Even if your name is Shedeur Sanders.
