Shedeur Sanders has generated plenty of headlines throughout his rookie season, despite entering the year buried on the Cleveland Browns’ depth chart. That finally changed Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens, when Sanders checked in for an injured Dillon Gabriel and made his much-anticipated NFL debut.
After Sanders’ free-fall in the 2025 NFL Draft made his reputation a hot-button issue, it is worth keeping an eye on his status in Cleveland. The Browns don’t have a ton of time to reset ahead of their Week 12 showdown with the Las Vegas Raiders, so Sanders could dive right back into the action again this weekend.
Dillon Gabriel Injury Update
Gabriel played the entire first half against the Ravens on Sunday, but Sanders started the second half. Gabriel was evaluated for a concussion and ultimately ruled out for the remainder of the contest. Prior to his injury, Gabriel was 7-for-10 with 68 yards through the air, adding 2 yards on two carries while also taking a sack.
As the following week of practice gets underway, Gabriel is still in concussion protocol. As a result, Sanders is expected to make the first start of his NFL career in Week 12. Whether or not he retains that role moving forward is dependent on Gabriel’s long-term status and how Sanders performs in the interim.
On the whole this season, Gabriel has completed 59.2% of his passes for 937 yards, seven touchdowns and two interceptions. The 5-foot-11 third round pick out of Oregon boasts a 80.8 passer rating, exceeding Joe Flacco’s mark from before the Browns traded him to the Bengals.
Shedeur Sanders NFL Debut Takeaways
Sanders completed just four of his 16 pass attempts for 47 yards Sunday afternoon, throwing one interception and fumbling once while taking two sacks. He also rushed for 16 yards on three carries. In short, he was a long ways away from the player he was at Colorado in 2023 and 2024.
The 6-foot-2 23-year-old posted a dreadful 13.5 passer rating, with only 33.3% of his passes being on target. He threw for two first downs and rushed for one, even guiding the Browns down to the Ravens’ 25-yard line with a chance to tie in the final two minutes, only to throw three straight incompletions and turn the ball over on downs to secure the loss.
Coach Kevin Stefanski was quick to point out postgame that Sanders hadn’t played with the Browns’ starters until that very day. First-team reps have been hard to come by for Sanders since the beginning, considering Cleveland also had Kenny Pickett and Tyler Huntley in the quarterback room during the preseason. The Browns dealing Flacco and Pickett and cutting Huntley – all while Deshaun Watson is recovering from a torn Achilles – demonstrated some level of faith in Sanders, but this is still quite the leap for Deion Sanders’ son.
How Shedeur Sanders will impact his Browns’ teammates in fantasy football
In case you weren’t already steering clear of Browns receivers, you definitely should now. Jerry Jeudy, who was averaging 6.0 PPR fantasy points per game prior to Cleveland’s Week 9 bye, scored 5.1 in Week 11. The lone outlier is his 19.8-point performance in Week 10, when Jeudy went for 78 yards and a touchdown on six catches and 12 targets. Sanders hasn’t proven himself capable of fueling that kind of production, though, so Jeudy’s value is back down to the floor.
Send tight ends David Njoku and Harold Fannin Jr. to the bench, too, if possible. Njoku is touchdown dependent as it is. A PPR fiend like Fannin has slightly more value, but he only caught one of his three targets from Sanders on Sunday.
Downgrade Quinshon Judkins, as well. The rookie running back entered Week 11 averaging 13.4 PPR fantasy points per game. Then, on Sunday, Judkins scored 5.9. He didn’t catch either of his two targets from Sanders and only rushed for 20 yards on 6 carries in the second half. It isn’t like game script rendered him useless, either – the Browns were ahead until the final five minutes. A matchup with the Raiders may look enticing, but relying on a Sanders-led offense to march into the red zone with any regularity is a dangerous game. Judkins averages 8.1 PPR fantasy points per game when he doesn’t find the end zone, so he has fallen from RB2 range to low-end FLEX option for the time being.
It goes without saying that Sanders is not worth picking up unless you are literally in a 16-team superflex league. Gabriel was averaging 12.48 PPR fantasy points per game in his five full starts, and Sanders doesn’t seem to be on that level yet.
