It remains to be seen whether Shedeur Sanders will make the Browns roster, but his ability to draw eyeballs to the screen is unquestioned.
Sanders got the start for the Cleveland Browns in their preseason opener against the Carolina Panthers on Friday in a game that was broadcast on NFL Network. The game drew a whopping 2.237 million viewers.
According to the NFL, those numbers made the game the league’s most-watched preseason game since 2015.
Sanders’ draft day slide was one of the most intensely covered and debated events in recent NFL history. While media talking heads and draft prognosticators seemed to think Sanders was – at worst – a late first or early second round pick. NFL teams had a different idea, as Sanders fell, not just out of the first and second rounds, but also the third and fourth, before eventually getting drafted by Cleveland in the fifth round.
Despite a mostly solid showing against Carolina in the preseason game, Sanders remains fourth on the Browns’ four-player QB depth chart. Reports surfaced this week that Sanders suffered an oblique injury in practice, and the plan was for fellow rookie Dillon Gabriel to get the start against Philadelphia on Saturday.
However, the Browns have not officially declared who will get the start.
What is official is that being Deion Sanders’ son and a bit of a social media star may not help you make a team, but it definitely will help the league’s ratings.
