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The Cleveland Browns got their preseason underway on Friday night against the Carolina Panthers, and all eyes were on Shedeur Sanders for his NFL debut.
With Dillon Gabriel and Kenny Pickett sidelined due to hamstring injuries and Joe Flacco sitting out due to his veteran status, the door was wide open for Sanders to come in and impress the Cleveland coaching staff. Some thought that with a good performance, the Colorado product may even be able to move up from his current fourth-string spot on the depth chart.
The fifth-round pick played nearly three quarters before recent free-agent addition Tyler Huntley came in and took over for the fourth quarter, but he showed off some impressive traits in the first three periods. Overall, Sanders finished 14-for-23 with 138 yards and two touchdowns. He also ran the ball four times for 19 yards.
Let's dive into the game as a whole and look at how Sanders looked in his first NFL action.
Shedeur Sanders' downfield accuracy, timing were on display
For the most part, Sanders looked like his college self on Friday night in both good ways and bad. However, the good popped up time and time again as he led the Browns up and down the field in the second quarter.
The first thing that stuck out about Sanders was his timing, especially working in quick game. On early downs, Sanders got the ball out of his hand on time for the most part and kept the offense on schedule, which led to more manageable situations on late downs. Sanders also showed his trademark toughness that became a staple of his game at Colorado, hanging in tight pockets behind the Browns' backup offensive line and still delivering the ball down the field.
While Sanders had some uncharacteristic misses underneath on a few in-breaking routes, but his accuracy down the field was on point. His first NFL touchdown came on a bootleg out to the left where Sanders drifted out of the pocket and got his feet set before firing a perfectly-placed strike into the back of the end zone, just over the outstretched arms of a sinking cornerback, to Kaden Davis for his first career touchdown.
Sanders throws a TD pic.twitter.com/2f1X6VKq92
— Billy M (@BillyM_91) August 8, 2025
Sanders' second touchdown was another excellent play. He quickly dodged a blitzed up the middle, allowing his running back to pick up the pressure, before firing a bullet on a dig route into a tight window in the end zone for the duo's second scoring connection of the night.
Shedeur Sanders to Kaden Davis AGAIN for the TD!
CLEvsCAR on @NFLNetwork
Stream on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/9ucfAJiMNY— NFL (@NFL) August 9, 2025
On that second touchdown drive, Sanders rolled out to his right and floated a beautiful touch pass on the run to Luke Floriea, who reeled it in with one hand.
Shedeur Sanders buys time and finds Luke Floriea for the one-handed catch! 😮
CLEvsCAR on @NFLNetwork
Stream on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/QzVH8AgevL— NFL (@NFL) August 9, 2025
The Colorado product was also very effective as a scrambler in this game, picking up a pair of first downs with his legs after escaping the pocket. While he isn't the fastest player on the field and he didn't scramble as much at Colorado, he showed on Friday night that it's a part of his game that can be an asset to the offense.
Where Sanders can improve after debut
The first, and probably the most puzzling part of this otherwise impressive debut was that Sanders had a couple of inaccurate misses on underneath routes that he usually hits on the numbers 100 times out of 100. He missed a pair of slant routes up high, putting his wideouts at risk of big hits over the middle. He also missed one in-breaker far behind the receiver (who still made a difficult catch).
There were a few misses on what appeared to be miscommunications, which is bound to happen in the preseason with so many new pieces playing together for the first time.
Those blips in accuracy will get cleaned up with more reps with the same guys, and when Sanders starts to play with the starting receivers some more.
The more concerning part of this game was the skittishness at times in the pocket, which was one of the biggest red flags around Sanders coming out of school. He still has a proclivity to escape out of the pocket backwards and get far behind the line of scrimmage while trying to find someone open, all while refusing to turn the ball away.
There were two major instances of this in his debut, ending in a throwaway and him scampering out of bounds for a two-yard loss. While he may be quick enough to escape college pass rushers and some backup defensive linemen in the preseason, that still isn't going to fly against starting NFL edge rushers.
There are no alarm bells to sound here, and this is something that we already knew he had to improve. However, moving forward there needs to be some willingness to escape up in the pocket to avoid the catastrophic, drive-killing plays that popped up at times in Colorado.
It should be mentioned as some context here that the Browns' backup offensive line protecting Sanders was not good, similar to the pass protection that he managed during his time at Colorado. Playing with the ones should also help alleviate this problem somewhat.
Overview
Overall, this was a positive performance for Sanders in his first preseason game, one that should earn him some more reps in this Browns offense moving forward through training camp. Joe Flacco will likely begin the regular season as the starter and rightfully so, but Sanders would be my pick as the backup at the moment.
Neither side of the discourse will be normal about basically any performance from Sanders, but there's no question that this was a step in the right direction even with the few things that need to be improved upon.
