Leading up to the 2025 NFL Draft, numerous stories linked the Cleveland Browns with Shedeur Sanders out of Colorado, Ole Miss’ Jaxson Dart, Alabama’s Jalen Milroe and Louisville’s Tyler Shough among quarterback prospects. 

Thus, many were shocked when Cleveland drafted Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel at pick No. 94. The Browns then made the most noteworthy move of the fifth round when they traded up to select Sanders with the No. 144 overall choice. 

On Sunday, Browns insider Tony Grossi of ESPN Cleveland/The Land on Demand shared that the club had Gabriel ranked fourth on its draft board for players at the position. 

“They had him behind [Miami’s Cam Ward], Jaxson Dart and Tyler Shough, who were already taken, and ahead of Jalen Milroe, who was taken two spots earlier by Seattle,” Grossi added about the Browns drafting Gabriel. “Shedeur Sanders, who was in the midst of a historic free fall, was sixth on their board after Gabriel and Milroe.”

As had been widely expected, the Tennessee Titans made Ward the draft’s first pick on Thursday night. 

Meanwhile, Browns reporter Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer said on the latest edition of the “Orange and Brown Talk Podcast” that she “wasn’t surprised about Dillon Gabriel because I knew they really liked him a lot and I knew that they were targeting him in this draft and that they were probably going to end up with him at some point in this draft.” 

According to Cabot, the Browns “flew out to Eugene, Oregon, the day before they went to Colorado, to Boulder to take (two-way star) Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders to dinner. That happened on April 3. The day before that, they flew to Eugene…they snuck in this private visit and dinner with Dillon Gabriel out in Oregon.”

As The Athletic’s Zac Jackson noted, Gabriel was projected as a third-day pick as recently as this past Friday afternoon. ESPN’s Matt Miller had Gabriel ranked as the 235th-best overall prospect in this year’s class. While Miller had Sanders at No. 25 in his final rankings, it’s now clear the polarizing quarterback did himself no favors with how he and his camp handled the predraft process. 

With Deshaun Watson likely to miss a majority of the 2025 season after he suffered a torn Achilles this past October and then tore the Achilles again during his recovery, Gabriel and Sanders are on track to compete with veteran Joe Flacco and 2022 first-round selection Kenny Pickett for Cleveland’s starting quarterback job. Jackson mentioned that “Sanders seems to be guaranteed nothing” regarding his status with the Browns, even though logic suggests he could have the highest ceiling of the team’s four available signal-callers. 

Considering what both Grossi and Cabot said about how the Browns view Gabriel, it seems that the club will have to make a big call about Sanders, Flacco or Pickett after it plays its final preseason game in August.