BEREA — General manager Andrew Berry insisted before the NFL draft the Browns weren’t going to necessarily take a quarterback with the No. 2 overall pick. He never said there wasn’t a chance they weren’t going to use two draft picks on quarterbacks.

Turns out, the Browns didn’t even use the No. 2 pick, because they traded it to the Jacksonville Jaguars. They did, however, use two draft picks on quarterbacks, taking Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel in the third round at No. 94 overall before trading up in the fifth round to take Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders at No. 144.

“We felt like it wasn’t necessarily the plan going into the weekend to select two quarterbacks.” Berry said after the Sanders pick. “But as we talk about, we do believe in best player available, we do believe in positional value, and we didn’t necessarily expect him to be available in the fifth round. We love adding competition to every position room and adding him to compete with the guys that are already in there. We felt like that was the appropriate thing to do.”

The challenge now is to figure out how this impacts the Browns’ starting quarterback job this fall. The Browns went into the draft with Kenny Pickett, who they acquired in a March trade from the Philadelphia Eagles, and free-agent signee Joe Flacco as the only healthy quarterbacks with Deshaun Watson likely out for most of the season due to a second Achilles surgery.

Gabriel and Sanders will be in Berea May 9-11 for rookie minicamp. One would assume they would take part in the remainder of the offseason program, where they would likely join Pickett and Flacco.

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“The main thing I’m just proving … Coach Stefanski and Mr. Berry that they were right,” Sanders said on a conference call with Cleveland media. “That’s it. That they were right about picking me. That I’m a good decision, I’m a good draft pick for them to be able to come in there and do what I need to do.”

Coach Kevin Stefanski has said previously that all of the quarterbacks, at the least ones who were healthy, would be involved in the competition. Berry said after Sanders was picked that, “We expect every player to compete. Simple as that.”

How does one create an equitable system for evaluating a four-quarterback competition? Is it even possible to do so and still prepare to play a season?

“We’ve talked about it,” Stefanski said. “I mean, there’s ways to do both I think. Obviously you may not divide them 25, 25, 25, but we feel really confident that we’ll have a plan that is fair to each player and fair to the team as well.”

Berry said at the NFL owners meetings the quarterback room composition would “probably skew young just to be quite frank. I think that that’s probably more appropriate relative to our longer term goals.”

The age range of the quarterback group is something to consider as well. Flacco’s 40, but the other three are, in descending order, 26 (Pickett), 24 (Gabriel) and 23 (Sanders).

The oldest of the group has the same shot at starting as the youngest. At least, that’s been the messaging.

“Kevin kind of just said, listen, we have no preconceived notions of who’s going to be the starting quarterback,” Flacco said on Wednesday, April 23. “We want to put together a good room and have good competition and see what comes of it.”

Flacco has 16 playoff starts alone, along with a Super Bowl win, in his 18-year career, not to mention 196 regular-season starts. Pickett has 25 career NFL starts under his belt, 24 of those in two years after the Pittsburgh Steelers made him their 2022 first-round pick.

Sanders started 50 games in four years of college between FCS Division I Jackson State and FBS Division I Colorado. Gabriel comes in like the college version of Flacco, with 63 starts in 64 career games over six seasons at UCF (2019-21), Oklahoma (2022-23) and Oregon (2024).

“I’m confident in my abilities,” Gabriel said in a conference call with Cleveland area media. “I know what my strengths are. I know what I’m able to do, I know what I bring to the table and I’m confident in that. But also know that I’m a sponge. I can learn from anyone, and that’s Joe or another rookie that’s coming in with me.

“So in either way, I’m just excited to learn, I’m excited to grow, but I’m also excited to compete because, like I said, it’s a business about results, and that’s what I’ve been focused on. I want to win, and that’s what I’m going to continue to pride myself on.”

Chris Easterling can be reached at [email protected]. Read more about the Browns at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/browns. Follow him on X at @ceasterlingABJ