The biggest question for the Cleveland Browns heading into the new season is who will be the team’s starting quarterback in 2026. The competition seems to be between veteran Deshaun Watson, to whom the team has tied a large amount of money, and youngster Shedeur Sanders, who started down the stretch of last season for Cleveland, with mixed results.
Recently, NFL insider Ian Rapoport broke down the latest update from Browns training camp regarding the QB battle.
“It certainly seems like Deshaun Watson has the leg up here. He is the one who is more well-versed in the Browns’ offensive operations, just really operations in general, running an offense, getting out of the huddle, getting the team in and out of the right play,” he said, per his account on X, formerly Twitter.
He also described Watson’s training camp performance so far as “up and down” and predicted that both Watson and Sanders could end up seeing playing time this year.
Watson is coming back from a brutal injury that caused him to miss significant time. His tenure with the Browns was already shrouded in controversy due to his off-field concerns and the huge price that Cleveland paid to bring him in from the Houston Texans several years ago.
At this point, it’s unclear just how much Watson has left in the tank at the NFL level, but at this point, it seems that he is in the driver’s seat for the starting quarterback position in Cleveland.
Sanders, meanwhile, will hope for an opportunity at some point to build off the flashes he showed last year and establish himself under new head coach Todd Monken.
The Browns’ season is set to begin on September 13.
The biggest question for the Cleveland Browns heading into the new season is who will be the team’s starting quarterback in 2026. The competition seems to be between veteran Deshaun Watson, to whom the team has tied a large amount of money, and youngster Shedeur Sanders, who started down the stretch of last season for Cleveland, with mixed results.
