You had to know, even if you’ve not followed the Cleveland Browns for long, that dropping Shedeur Sanders into the starting quarterback mix with two days to go before the NFL trade deadline was going to create a new ripple of drama around the team that had been relatively drama-free over the course of the season with Deshaun Watson at the helm (regular season, at least; there was plenty of Watson preseason drama.) Indeed, Sanders put up good numbers: 297 yards passing, two touchdowns, no interceptions and a 114.6 passer rating.
On Monday night, especially with the Vikings struggling to score just six points in their loss to the Bill sin the MNF game, speculation began to swirl that the Browns would move Sanders before Tuesday’s 4 p.m. ET trade deadline. The Browns have four quarterbacks on the roster, with Sanders, Watson, Dillon Gabriel and Taylen Green and though there have been plenty of denials as to whether they’d trade one, the speculation has persisted–especially with the numbers Sanders put up on Sunday.
Browns Nearly Won, But …
Except that ESPN analyst Ben Solak said, rather clearly, that the Browns and the other 31 teams in the league, should not put much belief in those numbers. Indeed, teams with deep advanced stats operations probably won’t. In Sanders’ defense, he has shown a knack for winning games despite not producing the best advanced analytics–he was 3-4 as a starter last year despite ranking No. 38 out of 38 quarterbacks by Pro Football Focus–but the numbers say what they say, and that’s how Sanders will be judged.
Sanders did make some big throws that caught attention around the league. He had two deep balls to KC Concepcion and Denzel Boston, and a tight-rope throw to Jerry Jeudy that nearly saved the game. The Browns were a 2-point conversion away from winning. There have been several teams that could use a reset at quarterback, and thus, Sanders name is bouncing around the trade rumor mill.
Shedeur Sanders Was ‘Brutal’
But don’t get sucked in, Browns fans. That’s according to Solak, who had a pretty epic rant on Shedeur Sanders on Monday in an ESPN podcast with Dan Graziano:
“On socials, you are going to be scanning the Instagram reels and you are going to see some of these touchdowns—you’re going to see a little scramble, he is going to flash the watch and, whatever, you are going to see all these things. I am here to tell you, you gotta listen to me: 31% success rate on the day, with those good of numbers, that is preposterously low. The league average for success rate is like 41, 42%.
“And if you’re somebody who is like, Ben, I know what completion percentage rate is, I know what yards per pass is, I don’t know what success rate is, why should I care? Success rate is just a measure of what percent of your plays as a quarterback were positive plays for the offense. Sanders had remarkably fewer positive plays than the average NFL quarterback has on a given day. It would have been the second-worst Deshaun Watson day in terms of the percentage of his plays that were just positive.
“I am just telling you that when you see the Sanders box score and the highlights this week, just know, those were three of 11 or 12 good plays and then everything else was below average to brutal.”
Browns ‘Brutal’ Shedeur Sanders Blasted as Trade Rumors Swirl