The Cleveland Browns will do anything to find their franchise quarterback.
Where other teams are taking a wait-and-see approach with many of the young signal-callers they either draft or pick up, the Browns have thrown that playbook out the window and have adopted the shotgun approach.
If they draft, trade, and sign as many signal-callers as humanly possible, one of them has to turn out to be a franchise guy, right?
Heading into the offseason, the Browns already have three quarterbacks that new head coach Todd Monken believes could start opening week: Deshaun Watson, Dillon Gabriel, or the player who ended the past season as QB1, Shedeur Sanders.
Although Sanders thinks he did enough to hold onto his position under center for 2026, the new coaching staff in Cleveland and general management don’t agree with the 2025 fifth-round selection.
On Thursday, Sanders and his camp received even more distressing news about potential competition this summer during training camp.
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Per NFL insider Tom Pelissero, the Browns are hosting former Alabama Crimson Tide QB Ty Simpson, the consensus No. 2 quarterback in the 2026 NFL Draft.
Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza is heavily favored to go No. 1 overall to the Las Vegas Raiders, but Simpson could be available for the Browns, who have two first-round picks at the 6th and 24th spots.
Simpson is a talented thrower and was neck-and-neck with Mendoza as the possible No. 1 selection before getting injured in the back half of the season, which saw his performance drop off a cliff.
Yet, Simpson is still seen as a possible franchise QB by many pundits, and if fully healthy, could still end up as the best QB of the upcoming rookie class.
For Sanders, it could be another obstacle that he would have to overcome to win the starting job in Cleveland. Even if Simpson wouldn’t be slated to start initially, using premium draft capital in the first round would show that the Browns don’t truly believe Sanders, Gabriel, or Watson are the strongest options for the franchise moving forward.
