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BEREA — Shedeur Sanders is square in the middle of a too-close-to-call battle to be the starting quarterback.
That’s not how he views it.
“I think how y’all look at things is different than how we look at things,” he said Wednesday after minicamp practice. “We look at coming to practice every day, being the best player we can be as an individual and as a good teammate. Y’all look at it as like a competition. That’s not really nothing I’m just focused on.
“I’m focused on developing as a player, doing everything, getting as comfortable as I can in the offense, in the scheme and playing with that confidence I had. So I think that’s all I’m really looking for and trying to improve every day, whether it’s mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually. I’m just trying to be a better person every day and wherever that falls into place, it’ll fall into place.”
Browns QB Shedeur Sanders says he’s focused on development, not the competition for the starting role. pic.twitter.com/4rbp0UbKPA
— Scott Petrak ct (@ScottPetrak) June 10, 2026
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It’s an unusual perspective in the cutthroat NFL, but one that could serve him well as he tries to keep his attention on the process and not the outcome.
He and Deshaun Watson are the candidates to start Week 1 in Jacksonville in September. Coach Todd Monken said Tuesday both have played well and earned the right to keep competing during training camp, which starts in late July. They’ve continued to split first-team repetitions in minicamp.
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Sanders didn’t care to offer an opinion on the competition.
“I’m not a judge,” he said.
Watson said he’s motivated to start again after missing the last season and a half with a twice-ruptured Achilles tendon. He dodged a question asking if he agreed with Monken that the race is too close to call.
“He’s the head coach. He’s the one calling the plays and he got to decide who he wants out there on the field,” Watson said. “So at the end of the day, I got to just show up each and every day and be ready and wait for my number’s called.”
Sanders has consistently praised Watson for his guidance last year when he was a rookie, and Watson said he’s known the Sanders family for a while.
“Me and his family got a good relationship and we always just try to pull for each other,” Watson said. “We both have the opportunity to go out there and put out the best product for the team and let Monken and the organization choose who can go out there, and we’re going to support each other.”
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Sanders can be a polarizing figure and cast a big shadow. Since the Browns drafted him in the fifth round a year ago, he’s talked often of trying to keep the locker room united.
That continues with the quarterback competition, so he acted offended when asked whether he would hold his own throwing workings with Browns receivers in the break before training camp or join Watson’s.
“We’re a team. If one of us chooses to do something, we all going to do it together as a team. It’s not no individual thing,” Sanders said. “The quarterback room, we all connected. We all cool. That’s the difference. We all communicate with each other.
“We all going to come as one. We all going to get together as one team and get things done. Because then that causes separation and just a messed-up vibe and that’s not really what we’re on this year. We’re on being a great team.”
The team-first philosophy doesn’t mean Sanders isn’t driven. He’s come on strong over the last couple of weeks, with Monken and coordinator Travis Switzer pointing out the progress.
“He’s been getting better and better with each practice day,” Monken said.
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“I’m a man of my word, so if I say I’m dedicating everything I have to be great, then that’s just what I’m going to do,” Sanders said, referring to comments earlier in the offseason. “I think now you can understand I’m a man of my word a little bit more.”
Monken and Switzer mentioned Sanders has sped up his footwork and getting through progressions, but Sanders kept the improvements general.
“I try to make everything, being the best quarterback in the world, a point of emphasis,” he said. “So whatever I need to improve, then I look at that and I try to improve.
“So it’s just the whole thing, just being a better person, just overall everything. So it’s not one thing. It’s when you look at everything as a whole, you understand, OK, this is what I need to get better at, and I changed that. So everything you can be.”
Teammates have noticed.
“From the point I got to the Browns during (last) season all the way to now, you see the growth big-time,” cornerback Tyson Campbell said. “The way he carries himself, the way he practices, you can tell he’s being even more than the pro that he was last year. He’s getting better and he’s getting more comfortable in the offense and he’s been making plays all spring.”
Sanders seems refreshed by the coaching change from Kevin Stefanski to Monken, citing a relationship with Monken in which he doesn’t want to let him down. Monken is a screamer — he lost his voice Wednesday — but Sanders isn’t a stranger to tough love from a coach.
“Seems like something familiar I was used to. Seems like a guy that I’m real familiar with,” he said, referencing a life of being coached by his father, Deion. “So I enjoy it. I definitely like his expectations he has for us, and it gives you no choice but to be great or to get out the way. I think it’s just that simple.”
Browns minicamp: Shedeur Sanders to TE Brenden Bates. pic.twitter.com/M0bkWRBJvc
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Watson said Monken’s system puts a lot of responsibility on the quarterback. There’s also an element of quarterback run.
“I don’t think it’s really about just the offense,” Sanders said. “I don’t think about things I can’t control. If I was in a wing-T, I would have no choice but to execute a wing-T offense. So I don’t think about those things. I think about, OK, this is the objective. This is where I got to learn, this is what I got to do and I got to maximize everything I can in this position.”
Browns writer for The Chronicle-Telegram and The Medina Gazette. Proud graduate of Northwestern University. Husband and stepdad. Avid golfer who needs to hit the range to get down to a single-digit handicap. Right about Johnny Manziel, wrong about Brandon Weeden. Contact Scott at 440-329-7253, or email and follow him on and Twitter.
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