Does Shedeur Sanders deserve the Browns’ job without beating Deshaun Watson first?
Eric Mangini has spent more than a year arguing that Cleveland’s enthusiasm for Shedeur Sanders is running ahead of the evidence, and the opening of training camp has not softened him. The former Browns head coach used an appearance on FS1’s “First Things First” to argue that nothing in Sanders’ rookie file justifies handing over the starting job before he beats out Deshaun Watson for it.
Sanders completed 56.6 percent of his passes for 1,400 yards with seven touchdowns and 10 interceptions across eight appearances and seven starts, and he was sacked 23 times at a 9.7 percent rate. His 68.1 passer rating and 18.9 QBR both ranked last in the NFL among quarterbacks with at least seven starts.
Mangini worked through those figures one at a time on air before asking what on the list would qualify Sanders as a “Day 1 starter with no competition.”
Mangini called the Cleveland hype around Sanders “ridiculous” during camp last summer, and he spent the weeks after the 2025 draft pushing the theory that owner Jimmy Haslam, rather than general manager Andrew Berry, drove the decision to spend the 144th pick on him.
Haslam denied that publicly a year ago. Consistency is not the same as being right, but it does rule out the idea that Mangini is reacting to a slow news week.
Former Browns head coach Eric Mangini warned against handing Shedeur Sanders the starting job without competition, arguing the young quarterback’s rookie production doesn’t justify skipping an open battle with Deshaun Watson.
“I don’t know what number we’re looking at that… pic.twitter.com/Cv6oVWvNIh
— BrownsNation.com (@BrownsNationcom) July 29, 2026
Why Mangini’s Deshaun Watson comparison still lands
The part that gives the argument weight is that Mangini did not build it on any faith in Watson. He called the distance between what Cleveland expected from Watson and what it received “an absolute disaster,” then made his case on a floor.
Watson has never finished a season with more interceptions than touchdown passes, and the worst passer rating of his career is the 79.1 he posted over six games in 2022, more than 11 points clear of where Sanders finished a year ago. Watson has also not taken a regular-season snap since October 2024 after rupturing the same Achilles tendon twice, and he was activated off injured reserve in February.
Both quarterbacks should have to play for the job and the better one should get it
Todd Monken, in his first year replacing Kevin Stefanski, has already taken that side of it. He announced an open competition in the winter, and beat reporting out of the spring suggested Watson held a narrow edge coming out of minicamp.
The Browns opened camp on Wednesday with the two alternating with the first unit, the same rotation they ran in June, and Monken has attached no timeline to naming a starter. Dillon Gabriel and sixth-round rookie Taylen Green remain in the room. Cleveland has started 42 different quarterbacks since 1999, which is its own argument for leaving nothing to assumption.
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