Could the Shedeur Sanders era in Cleveland be over before it even started?
The Cleveland Browns are having pretty much the most Browns season ever after 7 games in 2025. They’re 2-5 on the season, and traded their starting quarterback Joe Flacco to the Cincinnati Bengals, where he’s pretty much saved their season after an early injury to Joe Burrow looked to have all but eliminated any playoff hopes in Cincy.
Cleveland has turned to rookie QB Dillon Gabriel out of Oregon for the starting job, and so far the Browns have gone 1-2 with Gabriel starting under center (with their win last week coming against the Miami Dolphins, who are…well, in rough shape).
Meanwhile, his fellow rookie QB, Shedeur Sanders out of Colorado, hasn’t gotten any time under center yet this season, despite previously voicing his opinion that he’s better than some starting quarterbacks in the NFL.
The Browns are in action today against the New England Patriots, but it was announced earlier today that Sanders would be inactive for the game due to a reported back injury. (Bailey Zappe is the backup QB for the Browns today, if that tells you anything about the state of affairs in Cleveland).
But an post Sanders made on Instagram has football fans wondering whether there’s something else going on with the outspoken rookie, and whether his time in Cleveland could already be coming to an end for his rookie season is even over.
After it was announced that he would be inactive today, Sanders posted a black and white photo to his Instagram story showing the rookie signing autographs for Browns fans in the stands.
And while he didn’t include a caption or anything else with the photo, many thought it was actually a goodbye message to Browns fans and that Sanders was signaling that he’ll soon be traded:
Shedeur, I rock with you heavy… just don’t get our hopes up. This feels like a goodbye picture to the Cleveland Browns. pic.twitter.com/ajN3sZTQ1t
— XIII (@thirt33n64) October 26, 2025
Bro definitely got word he’s getting traded
— maxxed (@Tangcapz) October 26, 2025
Yea he getting traded this week
— Ant (@King_Hinton5) October 26, 2025
Now, it’s possible that the post is in fact a goodbye to the Dawg Pound and a signal that Shedeur knows he’s being traded. There’s still a chance that the Browns get Deshaun Watson back this season from an achilles injury, with speculation that he could return to the active roster for Cleveland after the bye week next weekend.
But it seems like the Browns have moved on from any hope of the Watson signing being a success, despite trading three first round picks for the alleged sexual predator back in 2022 before signing him to a $230 million fully guaranteed contract, which was at the time the largest guaranteed contract in NFL history.
While it’s possible we see Deshaun Watson in a Browns uniform again, it feels pretty unlikely at this point, which means that the team will rely on Gabriel, Sanders and Zappe for the rest of the season.
That’s why it doesn’t seem likely that Sanders is being traded, although I feel like there are probably teams out there that would give him a chance to at least compete for the starting job.
Maybe everybody’s reading too much into his post. Or maybe Sanders really is being traded and saying goodbye to Browns fans.
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
