The Cleveland Browns will wrap up their 2026 preseason slate with a home game against the New England Patriots on Thursday night. But in a rather cruel stroke of luck, Browns fans likely won’t see starters play from either team.
As head coach Todd Monken confirmed to reporters this week, that includes backup quarterback Shedeur Sanders.
The Browns rotated three quarterbacks in their previous preseason games against the Bears and the Bills. With Deshaun Watson scheduled to sit along with the rest of the first unit, it would make sense to get Sanders some additional game reps against the Patriots.
Monken acknowledged that point, but he still plans to start third-stringer Dillon Gabriel. Sixth-round rookie Taylen Green is also slated to play in what will be the team’s final audition ahead of roster cutdown day on Aug. 30 and the season opener at Jacksonville on Sept. 13.
Gabriel ended up playing three snaps at the end of Saturday’s 31-7 loss to Buffalo, after Watson’s final series bled into the fourth quarter and the Bills followed with a clock-draining, 11-play scoring drive that took over 6 minutes of game time. Gabriel’s lone drive went three-and-out. Green hasn’t yet played a snap in the preseason.
“We’re not playing them because we’d like to see Dillon more,” Monken said of his top two quarterbacks. “It worked out last game — that was unfair to [Dillon]. So, in order to do that, to see more of him and see Taylen… there’s just not enough reps. That’s the reason. There’s really nothing else. Just trying to see Taylen after he played pretty well in the limited reps he had against the Bills, and we want to see more of Dillon. It just hasn’t worked out trying to get those other guys reps. That’s the reason.”
Dillon Gabriel's final audition could determine whether the Browns carry four quarterbacks
Monken is essentially treating Sanders like an extension of the starting group, which has been the case throughout the offseason. Cleveland’s top two quarterbacks have gotten the bulk of the reps and each saw three full quarters of preseason action.
The goal now is for Monken to answer his last big quarterback question: Are the Browns carrying all four on the active roster into the regular season or trimming it down to three?
In his latest roster projection for ESPN, Daniel Oyefusi had both Gabriel and Green making Monken’s initial 53-man roster. But for a team with all kinds of depth concerns, especially in the trenches following the season-ending injury to Alex Wright, Cleveland would hardly be doing itself a favor by burning a roster spot on a player who likely won’t help the team beyond scout-team work this season.
We could call this a battle for QB3, but it’s not much of a battle at this point. Gabriel has gotten just about every meaningful rep that was left over from the Sanders-Watson competition, including mixing in some with the second unit. Aside from a few recent practice sessions, Green really hasn’t gotten much work in team periods since rookie minicamp.
That’s precisely why Oyefusi is currently projecting Green to make the roster as a fourth quarterback. The Browns used the No. 182 overall pick on Green in April’s draft, betting on his tantalizing skills as a dual-threat athlete. He was always going to need some development in his transition to a more pro-style offense coming out of Arkansas, and he simply hasn’t been given an opportunity to fail yet.
Which puts the spotlight firmly on Gabriel, who showed enough during Monken’s spring program to create some buzz entering camp. He’s shown the ability to run the offense and execute the quick game in practice. That hasn’t translated to the preseason games, but he’s been mostly seeing mop-up duty in the fourth quarter, with third- and fourth-stringers on the field and everyone ready to go home.
That will change on Thursday, as Gabriel should get an opportunity to lead some of the top backups and actually play in the most meaningful part of the game, under the lights at Huntington Bank Field. This time, there will be no excuses, and the coaches should be able to make a clean evaluation of where the 2025 third-round pick is at.
How much of the game Gabriel gets remains unclear, but he’s not really competing with Green for a roster spot. He’s competing to convince Monken, GM Andrew Berry, and Browns leadership that it would be a good idea to carry all four quarterbacks into the regular season.
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