Each week, NFL teams are permitted to have 48 players in uniform for a game.
In a week with a full slate of games, that means 1,536 players are on the sidelines, either as starters, members of special teams units, or standing at the ready as they are the proverbial “one play away” from being called upon to enter the game.
Those 1,536 players are joined by the rest of the 53-man roster and practice squad players each week in preparing for the next game. Mondays are for lifting weights or getting treatment
for an injury. Tuesday is an off day. Wednesday through Friday is practice time, where the starters get the reps and the backups pay attention to what is going on. Saturdays are reserved for a walkthrough of the game plan.
On Sunday against the Las Vegas Raiders, rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders will make the transition from watching the game to playing as he will make his debut as the starting quarterback for the Cleveland Browns.
It has been a long and loud seven months since the Browns selected Sanders in the fifth round of the 2025 NFL Draft, but now he is only one day away from leading the Browns against the Raiders at Allegiant Stadium.
To prepare for the big moment, Sanders spent the week “treating this start like a final exam he can’t fail,” according to a report from Dianna Russini at The Athletic:
He took all the first-team reps on the field with Cleveland’s starters for the first time this week, and people inside the Browns building say there’s been a calm about Sanders that sticks out. Coaches and teammates have watched him roam the halls with his iPad under his arm, bouncing from meeting to meeting, stopping for extra one-on-one sessions with coach Kevin Stefanski. For a third-day pick who barely took reps earlier in the season, Sanders is, as one Browns player described it, “treating this start like a final exam he can’t fail.”
One staffer told me they’ve seen him in the cafeteria, tray in front of him, iPad out, dissecting Raiders tape as if his career depended on it. Because, in many ways, it does.
Sanders has done everything possible to prepare, I’ve been told. He’s not in the league simply to fill a roster spot; he’s here to make a statement. Sunday isn’t just a first start. It’s Sanders’ opportunity to rewrite the narrative, and he’s determined to do just that — even if not many people believe he’ll be able to do it.
While starting at the NFL level may be new for Sanders, this is a familiar situation for the Browns, as they went through the first start for a rookie in Week 5 with quarterback Dillon Gabriel, although without as much media focus.
Things have not gone so well for Gabriel or the Browns since that afternoon in Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, as Cleveland only won one of the six games with Gabriel as the starter. (Although not all of those can be pinned completely on Gabriel.)
Now, with Gabriel still in the league-mandated concussion protocol, the Browns are turning to Sanders and his desire to “make a statement” on Sunday against the Raiders.
Hopefully, that statement does not end up being “the league was right about him on draft weekend.”
