November 24, 2025 • 11 mins
Shedeur Sanders led the Cleveland Browns to a 24-10 win over the Raiders in his NFL debut, becoming the first Browns quarterback to win in their debut since 1995. Despite his poise, preparation, and on-field leadership, questions are mounting over whether the Browns organization is quietly undermining him. Head coach Kevin Stefanski has been reluctant to name Sanders the starter, while repeatedly showing more confidence in Dillon Gabriel—even after lackluster performances. Analysts called out strange coaching decisions like removing Shedeur in red-zone situations and punting from the 29-yard line, sparking accusations of intentional sabotage. With mounting fan support and growing frustration over front-office decisions, many wonder if Shedeur’s bright future can truly unfold in Cleveland.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
He galvanizes men. He is a leader of men. People.
Just he's a magnet, yo, He's a magnet for positivity.
And so this Brown's offense looked competent. And with that
Browns defense, if you give him just a moderate level
a moderate level of decent quarterback play, this team has
a chance to do something in the future. But for
whatever reason, they don't want their future to be tied
to Shador Sanders. And I think it's criminal.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Okay, So we got to see Chador Sanders finally start
in the NFL and it was a win against the
Las Vegas Raiders. He went eleven of twenty for two
hundred and nine yards, one touchdown, and an interception. The
Browns went on to win this game twenty four to ten. Now,
I like stats, right, Rodney, And this is the first
time a Cleveland Brown's quarterback has won in their debut
(00:52):
since ninety five.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yep, I was two.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I don't know how old he was, but yeah, I
mean that's crazy.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
What are your thoughts?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah, I was going to the bathroom by myself in
ninety five. Unlike some people, I thought this Okay, okay, anyway, Yeah, no,
I'm incredibly proud of shador Man. I think he's had
such an annointing on him, and whether you like his
personality or not doesn't matter so much. There's clearly like
(01:22):
a calling on Shador just and I don't mean to
be all biblical and make it all religious, but there's
something very special. I'm something very unique about him, and
he just continues to slay dragons at any given moment,
you know, And I think that his level of preparation
for this week, you can tell he was extremely detail oriented.
And though they won his game, he didn't have the
best game, you can tell that just getting those reps
(01:43):
with the first team made all the world of difference.
Like I'm just I'm proud of him. I'm happy for him.
I don't want to overstate because people don't like when
you overstate about Shador, But I love this kid. I
love his spirit, and I'm incredibly moved by who he
is and how his father, his parents raised him, not
just the.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
So yeah, and Dion was there, he was in the building,
he got to share a moment with him before the
game that was really special, and he had Deshaun Watson
on the sideline. I'm not really sure how I felt
about that.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Pressure makes diamonds. Maybe Deshawn's presence made me feel like
he's coming back, so I gotta really hold diamond spot. Sorry,
I didn't mean to interrupt.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
No, you didn't interrupt me. I wanted your thoughts on that.
I don't agree with what you're saying right now, but
what you disagree with Deshaun ain't coming back forever.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Maybe not forever, but you don't think he's playing this season.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
No, it seems to me like Kevin Stefanski has this
unnatural allegiance to losers, allegiance to Dylan Gabriels, specifically because
even in the post game after we saw like you know,
(02:52):
like you mentioned, it wasn't the best game from Shador,
but it was a more promising game than anything that
we've seen with Dylan Gabriel. Even when they were they
kept trying to take Shador out of the game and
do all these wildcats and whatever else that's neither here
or other. Kevin said, Well, they asked Kevin Stefanski after
(03:13):
the game about Dylan Gabriel and his concussion protocol. He said,
I don't want to get into that. They asked him
if Shador will be the starting, starting quarterback moving forward,
and he's like, ah, Like he can never give a
solid answer when it comes to Shador, like he gave
with Dylan Gabriel when Dylan Gabriel was his quarterback. He said,
Dylan Gabriel is my starting quarterback. Don't ask me no
(03:34):
more questions. Why don't you have that same confidence in Shador?
I know, like last week there was all this discourse
about Shador getting reps with the ones and how that
is just so crazy that Cam Newton came out and
was like the backup at least getting one or two
reps with the ones in practice. And Shadour gets up
here and says that he has not had any throws
(03:55):
to Jerry Judy all year. That's crazy to me. It's like,
I don't want to say, y'all setting the man up,
but you showing that you are.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yeah. He put them in a precarious position because this
like so remember that last week when he played, when
he came in after Gabriel got hurt. He did them
a huge favor, in a huge service by playing so poorly. Right,
it was like, Yo, look he's terrible, y'all. We tried
to tell you, We tried to tell you, and this week,
that whole narrative has flipped, because now you see, with
(04:29):
the level of preparation how different this offense can look.
We haven't seen that rollout fifty yard bomb that he
threw on the run. We hadn't seen any plays like
that from Dylan Gabriel in this Cleveland Browns offense all
year long. Miles Garrett himself said that there's not many
quarterbacks in this league who can make that throw. And
I told I've been saying it the whole time. He
galvanizes men. He is a leader of men people just
he's a magnet, yo, He's a magnet for positivity. And
(04:52):
so this Brown's offense, that excuse me, that has looked terrible.
Haven't even been able to make screen passes. You know,
in previous weeks, Dylan Gabriel throwing the ball out of
bounds on screen passes. This Brown's offense looked competent. And
with that Browns defense, if you give him just a
moderate level a moderate level of decent quarterback play, this
(05:13):
team has a chance to do something in the future.
But for whatever reason, they don't want their future to
be tied to Shador Sanders. And I think it's criminal
in many regards. I don't even know. I don't even
know how his spirit can remain so high in the
midst of such adversity. That's why I'm just I be
blown away at this kid. I be blown away at
at his smile. It's just the fact that he's still upright.
(05:34):
It's a beautiful, beautiful thing to see, yo.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
It really is, cause a lot of young kids would
be like, I don't forget it, Like the attitude would
have been on a thousand you can't tell me nothing.
And he still continues to show up every day. It
is amazing to see. But I think that we do
have to have a conversation about Kevin Stefanski, the general manager,
the owner. Hell, like, we got to talk about the
Cleveland Browns as an organization because they keep making misstep
(05:59):
after misstep. Put all of your eggs in Joe Flacco
to trade him away to the Bengals. It doesn't make
sense to me. Y'all had six quarterbacks on the roster
at one point, and it just felt like everything was
just all over the place. I don't know what they
got going on over there. I really hate that Shador
was drafted there because it seems as though Stefanski came
(06:21):
into this situation with this preconceived notion about Shador. I
don't know if something turned him off in the interview process,
but clearly he is not his guy. And we've seen
that happen in the past where coaches get you know,
they come in to the situation, they have a quarterback
there that is not their guy, and whether they realize
it or not, they're kind of sabotaging that person.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Nah. They have to realize that when you take your
starting quarterback out of the offense in red zone situations,
that's an insult to your quarterback. When you punt from
the twenty nine yard line, I've never seen anything like
that in my life. I have never seen anything like
that in my life. Yo, you punting from the twenty
(07:03):
nine yard line?
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Fan?
Speaker 1 (07:05):
If nothing else, it seemed like there was a desire
to protect the spread. So let's let's get Stefanski on
the hook, perhaps for manipulating the spread and the score,
if that's something that'll help get him out of there
so that Shador could thrive and flourish under somebody who
wants to see him thriving, flourish And let me be
the first person to throw that at the wall and
(07:26):
see if that sticks. Because punting from the twenty nine
yard line is insane. That is in nobody. Nobody does.
I've never in my life seen that.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Yo, who is the kicker? Like, we're not doing a
field goal there?
Speaker 1 (07:39):
I don't hold on. Let me, let me. I need
to see what the spread was. I need to see
what the spread was. I'm sorry, I got it. I
have to know.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
It looks like it was thirty seven and a half
and what and.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
It was thirty four points four to ten.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Let me see who the Browns play next week. The
Browns play the forty nine ers, Okay, And I think
it's just going to be interesting to see if Dylan
Gabriel is bad from concussion protocol, if he still gets
the knod.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
He will whenever he's ready to play. I think he's
gonna play because there is this. Yeah, I think I
think he'll start whenever he's ready to play. And that's
so fortunate. It's gonna put him in a worse spot
as well. He has he has a world of pressure
on him anything but the top of.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
That, the fans aren't seeing it for him. I think
I covered this in a short last week, Shador had
to come out and say like, hey, like y'all need
to stop booing Dylan and calling for me, because he's like,
it just makes the whole situation bad. He's like, it
makes me look bad because I'm not even doing nothing,
but people looking at me, you know, Like it just
puts him in a weird situation because the fans are
(08:58):
calling for Shador and they're booing Feeling and y'all keep
playing the man.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
There's a lot that I want to say, but I'm
not because I don't want to make everything like race related.
I don't, but sometimes there's just certain undertones that feel familiar,
and the spirit, the spirit of him is just it's
(09:25):
too bright for Cleveland as a whole. And I got
some good friends from Cleveland and they're good brothers. But
Shador needs to be out of this situation. He needs
to be away from this team. I don't know another
team in the league he can go to and start
or have an opportunity to start, you know, for next season.
So from a playing standpoint, this is probably his best
opportunity to have his own team. But man, I really
(09:45):
really wish that he was somewhere that that respected and
honored his anointing.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
And I saw Antonio Pearce say that before you know,
they moved on from him in Vegas, that they were
definitely gonna draft Shador. I thought that even if he
was up under Geno Smith, that's better than not the.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Way Geno been playing. Sit your ass doubt to the bench.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
But at least it would be a situation where he's
being you know, like nurtured as like you know, like
his backup where now it's like this carousel where nobody
really knows what's going on. Like, I don't think that
they would have did him like that in Vegas. That's
just my personal being. Who am I I don't know.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah, man, we'll see what happens next with shador saying this.
But y'all let us know whether or not you feel
like he should be the permanent start of going for
the Cleveland Browns. Let us know your thoughts in the
common section. Also, let me know if y'all feel like
the Cleveland Browns organization top to bottom is intentionally putting
him in position to fail. Let me hear your thoughts
in the common section. Man, I'm interested in I'm interested
to know Smarya, and go check.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Out our newsletter. The link is in our bio. We
have all the latest happenings in sports over there for you,
and our shorts and all the things, so go check
it out.
He galvanizes men. He is a leader of men. People.
Just he's a magnet, yo, He's a magnet for positivity.
And so this Brown's offense looked competent. And with that
Browns defense, if you give him just a moderate level
a moderate level of decent quarterback play, this team has
a chance to do something in the future. But for
whatever reason, they don't want their future to be tied
to Shador Sanders. And I think it's criminal.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Okay, So we got to see Chador Sanders finally start
in the NFL and it was a win against the
Las Vegas Raiders. He went eleven of twenty for two
hundred and nine yards, one touchdown, and an interception. The
Browns went on to win this game twenty four to ten. Now,
I like stats, right, Rodney, And this is the first
time a Cleveland Brown's quarterback has won in their debut
(00:52):
since ninety five.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yep, I was two.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I don't know how old he was, but yeah, I
mean that's crazy.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
What are your thoughts?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah, I was going to the bathroom by myself in
ninety five. Unlike some people, I thought this Okay, okay, anyway, Yeah, no,
I'm incredibly proud of shador Man. I think he's had
such an annointing on him, and whether you like his
personality or not doesn't matter so much. There's clearly like
(01:22):
a calling on Shador just and I don't mean to
be all biblical and make it all religious, but there's
something very special. I'm something very unique about him, and
he just continues to slay dragons at any given moment,
you know, And I think that his level of preparation
for this week, you can tell he was extremely detail oriented.
And though they won his game, he didn't have the
best game, you can tell that just getting those reps
(01:43):
with the first team made all the world of difference.
Like I'm just I'm proud of him. I'm happy for him.
I don't want to overstate because people don't like when
you overstate about Shador, But I love this kid. I
love his spirit, and I'm incredibly moved by who he
is and how his father, his parents raised him, not
just the.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
So yeah, and Dion was there, he was in the building,
he got to share a moment with him before the
game that was really special, and he had Deshaun Watson
on the sideline. I'm not really sure how I felt
about that.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Pressure makes diamonds. Maybe Deshawn's presence made me feel like
he's coming back, so I gotta really hold diamond spot. Sorry,
I didn't mean to interrupt.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
No, you didn't interrupt me. I wanted your thoughts on that.
I don't agree with what you're saying right now, but
what you disagree with Deshaun ain't coming back forever.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Maybe not forever, but you don't think he's playing this season.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
No, it seems to me like Kevin Stefanski has this
unnatural allegiance to losers, allegiance to Dylan Gabriels, specifically because
even in the post game after we saw like you know,
(02:52):
like you mentioned, it wasn't the best game from Shador,
but it was a more promising game than anything that
we've seen with Dylan Gabriel. Even when they were they
kept trying to take Shador out of the game and
do all these wildcats and whatever else that's neither here
or other. Kevin said, Well, they asked Kevin Stefanski after
(03:13):
the game about Dylan Gabriel and his concussion protocol. He said,
I don't want to get into that. They asked him
if Shador will be the starting, starting quarterback moving forward,
and he's like, ah, Like he can never give a
solid answer when it comes to Shador, like he gave
with Dylan Gabriel when Dylan Gabriel was his quarterback. He said,
Dylan Gabriel is my starting quarterback. Don't ask me no
(03:34):
more questions. Why don't you have that same confidence in Shador?
I know, like last week there was all this discourse
about Shador getting reps with the ones and how that
is just so crazy that Cam Newton came out and
was like the backup at least getting one or two
reps with the ones in practice. And Shadour gets up
here and says that he has not had any throws
(03:55):
to Jerry Judy all year. That's crazy to me. It's like,
I don't want to say, y'all setting the man up,
but you showing that you are.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yeah. He put them in a precarious position because this
like so remember that last week when he played, when
he came in after Gabriel got hurt. He did them
a huge favor, in a huge service by playing so poorly. Right,
it was like, Yo, look he's terrible, y'all. We tried
to tell you, We tried to tell you, and this week,
that whole narrative has flipped, because now you see, with
(04:29):
the level of preparation how different this offense can look.
We haven't seen that rollout fifty yard bomb that he
threw on the run. We hadn't seen any plays like
that from Dylan Gabriel in this Cleveland Browns offense all
year long. Miles Garrett himself said that there's not many
quarterbacks in this league who can make that throw. And
I told I've been saying it the whole time. He
galvanizes men. He is a leader of men people just
he's a magnet, yo, He's a magnet for positivity. And
(04:52):
so this Brown's offense, that excuse me, that has looked terrible.
Haven't even been able to make screen passes. You know,
in previous weeks, Dylan Gabriel throwing the ball out of
bounds on screen passes. This Brown's offense looked competent. And
with that Browns defense, if you give him just a
moderate level a moderate level of decent quarterback play, this
(05:13):
team has a chance to do something in the future.
But for whatever reason, they don't want their future to
be tied to Shador Sanders. And I think it's criminal
in many regards. I don't even know. I don't even
know how his spirit can remain so high in the
midst of such adversity. That's why I'm just I be
blown away at this kid. I be blown away at
at his smile. It's just the fact that he's still upright.
(05:34):
It's a beautiful, beautiful thing to see, yo.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
It really is, cause a lot of young kids would
be like, I don't forget it, Like the attitude would
have been on a thousand you can't tell me nothing.
And he still continues to show up every day. It
is amazing to see. But I think that we do
have to have a conversation about Kevin Stefanski, the general manager,
the owner. Hell, like, we got to talk about the
Cleveland Browns as an organization because they keep making misstep
(05:59):
after misstep. Put all of your eggs in Joe Flacco
to trade him away to the Bengals. It doesn't make
sense to me. Y'all had six quarterbacks on the roster
at one point, and it just felt like everything was
just all over the place. I don't know what they
got going on over there. I really hate that Shador
was drafted there because it seems as though Stefanski came
(06:21):
into this situation with this preconceived notion about Shador. I
don't know if something turned him off in the interview process,
but clearly he is not his guy. And we've seen
that happen in the past where coaches get you know,
they come in to the situation, they have a quarterback
there that is not their guy, and whether they realize
it or not, they're kind of sabotaging that person.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Nah. They have to realize that when you take your
starting quarterback out of the offense in red zone situations,
that's an insult to your quarterback. When you punt from
the twenty nine yard line, I've never seen anything like
that in my life. I have never seen anything like
that in my life. Yo, you punting from the twenty
(07:03):
nine yard line?
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Fan?
Speaker 1 (07:05):
If nothing else, it seemed like there was a desire
to protect the spread. So let's let's get Stefanski on
the hook, perhaps for manipulating the spread and the score,
if that's something that'll help get him out of there
so that Shador could thrive and flourish under somebody who
wants to see him thriving, flourish And let me be
the first person to throw that at the wall and
(07:26):
see if that sticks. Because punting from the twenty nine
yard line is insane. That is in nobody. Nobody does.
I've never in my life seen that.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Yo, who is the kicker? Like, we're not doing a
field goal there?
Speaker 1 (07:39):
I don't hold on. Let me, let me. I need
to see what the spread was. I need to see
what the spread was. I'm sorry, I got it. I
have to know.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
It looks like it was thirty seven and a half
and what and.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
It was thirty four points four to ten.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Let me see who the Browns play next week. The
Browns play the forty nine ers, Okay, And I think
it's just going to be interesting to see if Dylan
Gabriel is bad from concussion protocol, if he still gets
the knod.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
He will whenever he's ready to play. I think he's
gonna play because there is this. Yeah, I think I
think he'll start whenever he's ready to play. And that's
so fortunate. It's gonna put him in a worse spot
as well. He has he has a world of pressure
on him anything but the top of.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
That, the fans aren't seeing it for him. I think
I covered this in a short last week, Shador had
to come out and say like, hey, like y'all need
to stop booing Dylan and calling for me, because he's like,
it just makes the whole situation bad. He's like, it
makes me look bad because I'm not even doing nothing,
but people looking at me, you know, Like it just
puts him in a weird situation because the fans are
(08:58):
calling for Shador and they're booing Feeling and y'all keep
playing the man.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
There's a lot that I want to say, but I'm
not because I don't want to make everything like race related.
I don't, but sometimes there's just certain undertones that feel familiar,
and the spirit, the spirit of him is just it's
(09:25):
too bright for Cleveland as a whole. And I got
some good friends from Cleveland and they're good brothers. But
Shador needs to be out of this situation. He needs
to be away from this team. I don't know another
team in the league he can go to and start
or have an opportunity to start, you know, for next season.
So from a playing standpoint, this is probably his best
opportunity to have his own team. But man, I really
(09:45):
really wish that he was somewhere that that respected and
honored his anointing.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
And I saw Antonio Pearce say that before you know,
they moved on from him in Vegas, that they were
definitely gonna draft Shador. I thought that even if he
was up under Geno Smith, that's better than not the.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Way Geno been playing. Sit your ass doubt to the bench.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
But at least it would be a situation where he's
being you know, like nurtured as like you know, like
his backup where now it's like this carousel where nobody
really knows what's going on. Like, I don't think that
they would have did him like that in Vegas. That's
just my personal being. Who am I I don't know.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah, man, we'll see what happens next with shador saying this.
But y'all let us know whether or not you feel
like he should be the permanent start of going for
the Cleveland Browns. Let us know your thoughts in the
common section. Also, let me know if y'all feel like
the Cleveland Browns organization top to bottom is intentionally putting
him in position to fail. Let me hear your thoughts
in the common section. Man, I'm interested in I'm interested
to know Smarya, and go check.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Out our newsletter. The link is in our bio. We
have all the latest happenings in sports over there for you,
and our shorts and all the things, so go check
it out.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!