Getty Head coach Kevin Stefanski of the Cleveland Browns.
The Cleveland Browns have less than three weeks until training camp begins and are currently one quarterback heavy.
The franchise doesn’t need to make any immediate decisions and will see what it has in fifth-round rookie Dorian Thompson-Robinson before making a concrete call. But all signs are pointing to former third-rounder Kellen Mond ending up the odd man out in the Browns’ QB room once the regular season begins in September.
“Mond is not so much on the bubble as he is far on the outside looking in,” Cory Kinnan of USA Today’s Browns Wire wrote on Thursday, July 6. “With the selection of [Thompson-Robinson] in the fifth round of the 2023 NFL draft, and with Joshua Dobbs getting a fully guaranteed deal to back up Deshaun Watson this season, there is no room for a fourth quarterback.”
A new NFL rule will allow teams to carry an extra signal caller on Sundays who doesn’t count against the 53-man roster, and the rookie is likely to be Cleveland’s preference in that regard.
“Look for Thompson-Robinson to be the Browns’ third emergency quarterback on game days … and for Dobbs to back up Watson,” Kinnan wrote. “Mond could, however, land on the practice squad.”
Browns Should Try to Trade Kellen Mond Ahead of Season
GettyQuarterback Kellen Mond, formerly of the Minnesota Vikings, is a cut and/or trade candidate for the Cleveland Browns in the summer of 2023.
Mond could make sense as a practice squad quarterback, but he’d make more sense as a trade candidate if Cleveland can find any suitors willing to bite. Mond will play on the third season of his four-year, $5.2 million contract in 2023.
The Minnesota Vikings drafted Mond out of Texas A&M with the No. 66 overall pick in 2021 with designs on him backing up starter Kirk Cousins and possibly, eventually, taking over the starting job. That future never panned out, as Mond threw just three passes in purple and gold during his rookie year, completing two of those tosses for a total of five yards, per Pro Football Reference.
The QB hasn’t seen the field during a regular season game since, spending the last two full seasons riding the pine — first in Minnesota, before the Vikings waived him in August 2022 and the Browns scooped him up via the waiver wire.
Mond’s trade value is at an all-time low, and he may not garner even a seventh-round pick or a few hundred thousand dollars in cash in trade anywhere around the league. The more likely scenario is that the Browns shop the QB over the next several weeks before ultimately waiving him at the end of August — just as the Vikings did last offseason.
If that is the scenario that plays out, expect a quarterback-needy franchise somewhere to take a flier on the 24-year-old signal caller via the waiver wire. However, if no team does, Mond is likely destined for the Browns’ practice squad.
Rookie Dorian Thompson-Robinson Brings Experience to Browns
GettyThe Cleveland Browns selected quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson out of UCLA in the fifth round of the 2023 NFL Draft.
As far as rookies go, Thompson-Robinson is as prepared as they come to step onto an NFL field as Cleveland approaches the start of training camp in late July.
He is just five months younger than Mond and played five years as a member of the UCLA Bruins. Thompson-Robinson saw action in 49 total games over that span, completing 63.3% of his passes while throwing for 10,710 yards and 88 touchdowns compared to 36 interceptions, per Football Reference.
Thompson-Robinson is under contract with the Browns for the next four seasons on a rookie deal worth $4.2 million in total.