“I'd sleep like a baby if I got to play him every week.”
In today’s age of anonymous polling of NFL coaches and front office personnel to gain unique insight into the league, that sentence is about as brutal as it gets.
That quote came from Mike Sando’s 2026 insider quarterback tiers, which are compiled from a poll of 50 NFL execs and coaches by The Athletic. Thirty-five QBs were ranked and divided into four separate tiers.
Shedeur Sanders of the Cleveland Browns was ranked 35th. That brutal one-liner from an anonymous defensive coordinator should serve as added motivation as Sanders continues to chase veteran Deshaun Watson in Cleveland’s ongoing competition to be this year’s Week 1 starter.
Watson, for what it’s worth, wasn’t ranked much higher — 32nd out of 35, ahead of only Michael Penix Jr., Jacoby Brissett, J.J. McCarthy, and Sanders. The key difference came down to singular votes.
Watson, whether deserved or not, received one “Tier 2” vote, with the one outlier “betting on (head coach Todd Monken’s) ability to bring out the best in what’s left of him,” Sando wrote. Watson had 35 votes for Tier 4 and two for Tier 5 overall.
The league clearly views Sanders in a lesser light. The second-year pro received just one Tier 3 vote and 12 votes for Tier 5, which The Athletic described as “not a starter, period.”
At least a dozen NFL execs and coaches don’t believe Shedeur Sanders is a starter
Let’s call a spade a spade here — none of this is surprising after the NFL embarrassed itself during the 2025 NFL Draft. Longtime draft expert Mel Kiper Jr. continues to pound the table on Sanders as a prospect. His status as a first-round-caliber talent clearly dipped during that year's pre-draft process.
But No. 144 overall in the fifth round? That was and still is a terrible look for the league’s top decision-makers.
The Athletic’s poll results lack context. The key stat included in Sando’s analysis was Sanders ranking last in EPA per pass play among the 37 quarterbacks to start at least seven games in 2025. What wasn’t mentioned was the situation.
Cleveland’s offensive line began falling apart due to injuries in September, when Sanders was still a distant third on the depth chart and barely seeing any real reps in practice. As a fifth-round pick and the second of the Browns’ two drafted quarterbacks, Sanders entered his first offseason program fourth on the depth chart behind Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett, and fellow rookie Dillon Gabriel.
By the time Sanders was thrust into the starting lineup, it was Week 12. The Browns were down to Joel Bitonio at left guard and mostly backups along the offensive line. They couldn’t run the football consistently, and their skill position group was dreadful — and may have been historically bad without the brilliance of tight end Harold Fannin Jr.
All seven of Sanders' starts also came under a lame-duck head coach in Kevin Stefanski, who was essentially already out the door before the season’s end.
Through all of that, Sanders was able to win three of his seven starts and has developed enough this offseason to maintain a 50/50 split of first-team reps with Watson a week into training camp.
These rankings have to be taken with a grain of salt. No serious talent evaluator would take 34 quarterbacks ahead of Sanders, who made the most of an impossible situation and at times more than looked the part of a capable NFL starter last year.
Was it ugly? Of course. He was a 23-year-old rookie who barely got a chance to develop in 2025. But he seems to be working hard and improving by the week, and we'll see if Monken can help accelerate that process as training camp heats up.
This was a fun exercise and excellent presentation by The Athletic overall, but the NFL is only further embarrassing itself with its weird Shedeur Sanders agenda. Framing Sanders' rookie season as a complete failure misses the mark by a healthy margin.
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