Fan favorite Shedeur Sanders broke unfortunate Browns rookie QB record, but what's next?

photo found on MSN.com (by Barry Reeger, Imagn Images)

By Bridget Arnwine

This past Sunday afternoon, after 10 weeks of the regular season and several months of off-season neglect, rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders started his first NFL game against the Las Vegas Raiders. The son of NFL Hall of Fame legend Deion “Prime Time” Sanders (also known to the newer generation as Coach Prime due to his role as head coach of the University of Colorado Buffaloes football team) was once projected to be a top-five draft pick in the April 2025 draft, but NFL politics pushed Sanders to the fifth round at pick 144 for my hometown Cleveland Browns.

The energy and excitement many of us legacy Browns fans felt — after we got over our anger and confusion when the Browns traded out of the second pick, intentionally passing on drafting Sanders and his college teammate, Heisman Trophy–winning wide receiver/defensive back Travis Hunter — was something we hadn’t experienced since 2016, when the Cleveland Cavaliers won the city its first championship in over fifty years. That excitement quickly turned to pain and more frustration when it became clear the Browns had no good intentions when they drafted Sanders.

No matter where you stood on the argument about Shedeur’s qualifications for the starting QB job, one thing consistently caught fans’ attention: the Browns’ head coach would do whatever he could to remind Shedeur, and Browns fans alike, that Sanders would never see the field under his tenure. That was, until the coach’s top guy found himself concussed in the middle of Week 11’s game against the Baltimore Ravens.

It was during that game that Shedeur got his first opportunity to play with the starters. It was the first time he’d ever had reps with them, and aside from some obvious rust, he actually played relatively well. But what would he do with a full week of practice with the starters if the first-string QB was still unavailable? Would he perform as well as some of us believed he would? Would he fail, as others hoped? The odds were not in his favor.

No Browns rookie QB had won his starting debut since the Browns returned to Cleveland in 1999. The last rookie QB to win for the Browns was Eric Zeier in 1995. That’s seventeen rookie quarterbacks over the past thirty years who went without a first-start win. Yeah, I know. It hurts being a Browns fan. By the end of that same year, the Browns had packed up and moved to Baltimore, becoming the Baltimore Ravens.

Fast forward to Week 12 of the NFL season on Sunday, November 23, 2025. Debates swirled about what this week would mean for Shedeur Sanders. If he didn’t play well, fans, journalists, armchair quarterbacks, and former athletes alike predicted that it could spell the end of his hopes of becoming an NFL starting quarterback. If he played well, critics would say it was only against another team with a losing record. If he played really well, maybe he deserved a legitimate chance to be the starter. Social media and sports shows were on fire with speculation and anticipation.

When the game began, though, Shedeur left no doubt that he was exactly who he has always said he is: a winner. The Browns secured their third win of the season, and Shedeur broke the rookie starting QB losing streak, earning a place in Browns history. The team played lights-out, with the exception of an interception by Shedeur and a super weird fumble by Jerry Jeudy. Coach Prime was in the crowd along with the rest of Shedeur’s family, and the stadium seemed to rock with excitement when the final score was announced. It was electric. Browns fans were happy to get the win, and Shedeur fans were happy to see him win. But what’s next?

What comes next won’t be determined by one late-season win. While it’s clear that Shedeur has the tools to succeed, he’s also navigating what it means to be part of a franchise that has rarely known what to do with its own promise. And though cameras caught Browns General Manager Andrew Berry embracing him in the locker room after Sunday’s victory, one win doesn’t erase the politics that buried his draft stock from the start or the coaching decisions that kept him sidelined, even when many of us believed he was the most talented quarterback on the roster. It does, however, confirm what some of us have insisted all along: the kid has real talent, real poise, and a real chance to make a difference for this franchise—if the organization doesn’t squander it. Stay tuned.