Ahead of the training camp and amid a two-way quarterback battle between Deshaun Watson and Shedeur Sanders, ESPN Cleveland’s Tony Rizzo reported that the Cleveland Browns are receiving trade calls for the second-year quarterback. While it’s still up in the air whether general manager Andrew Berry would entertain a trade at this point, the Browns’ reporter, Dan Labbe, believes that trading Sanders would leave the team in a thin place.

“If you were to trade him, and it was a situation where he didn’t ask to be traded, or the Sanders family didn’t say, get me out of here, if you were just to trade him,” Labbe said in a conversation with Mary Kay Cabot. “I mean, we’ve seen Andrew Berry do this before, so maybe it wouldn’t be all that surprising, but you would be leaving yourself a little bit thin there at that position, considering that Deshaun Watson is coming off, getting the same Achilles repaired twice, had major shoulder surgery.

“You don’t even know if Deshaun Watson can play for a month, let alone a full season, and then you’d be leaving yourself with some combination of Dillon Gabriel, Taylen Green, and maybe you add another quarterback to your practice squad or something like that. You’d really be leaving yourself thin there.”

The Browns signed Watson ahead of the 2022 season on a five-year, $230 million fully guaranteed deal. However, the quarterback has yet to prove his worth in Cleveland. Across four years, Watson has started just 19 games for the Browns, where he went 9-10. In the process, he threw for just 3365 yards, 19 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions.

Now, he’s entering the final year of his deal and is competing against Shedeur Sanders to earn the QB1 job. During the OTAs and the mandatory minicamp, Watson proved his efficiency as the veteran went 90-for-133 with 13 touchdowns and three interceptions, while Sanders went 79-for-113 with five touchdowns and three interceptions.

However, even though Watson enjoyed a notable offseason, Labbe believes that his complicated injury history could affect the Browns in the 2026 season. Watson served an 11-game suspension in his first year with the Browns. In the 2023 season, he went down with a shoulder injury and missed the majority of the season after undergoing a season-ending surgery.

In 2024, he started 7 games, went 1-6, and suffered an Achilles tendon injury, sidelining him for the remainder of the season. While he was expected to return for the 2025 season, Watson re-ruptured his right Achilles tendon and didn’t play an offensive snap throughout the 2025 season. So, the Browns have yet to see what Watson could do under the center.

Now, in case Cleveland traded Sanders and Watson struggles or gets injured this season, they will have to use a combination of second-year quarterback Dillon Gabriel or rookie Taylen Green, which they would surely like to avoid. For context, Gabriel started six games last season and went 1-5, while throwing for 937 yards, 7 touchdowns, and 2 interceptions before Sanders eventually took over. As for Green, if Cleveland needs to start with a rookie, that means the season is already over for them.

While it’s true that Andrew Berry is known for late offseason trades, as he traded Kenny Pickett right before the final roster cuts last year, he’s unlikely to trade Sanders, at least not before the training camp starts. After all, head coach Todd Monken had cleared his stance on the two-way quarterback battle during the OTAs.

“Every day I kind of lean one way or the other with quarterbacks,” Monken said. “But we still got to get to that point…and then quarterback, who’s going to start for us. But I’m fired up by the quarterbacks. I just tell you, we got two starting level quarterbacks. We really do.”

The Browns are looking forward to their training camp in late July. As for Shedeur Sanders, the coaching staff would like to see him perform in the camp and the preseason before determining whether they actually want to trade him.