With the kind of spotlight an NFL training camp receives, no detail goes unnoticed, especially when it involves a high-stakes starting quarterback battle like the one at the Cleveland Browns. Shedeur Sanders appeared at the camp with a taped finger, sparking some serious discussion among fans.

“He got a blister on his finger of his throwing hand,” Hellion Boog Knight, Shedeur Sanders’ media manager, wrote on X, replying to a fan observation of the quarterback’s wrapped finger.

The issue was first reported by 92.3 The Fan’s Jonathan Peterlin, who was present at the site. He confirmed that people around Sanders claimed he was dealing with a blister, and that “people are not being sensitive enough” towards the problem.

“That’s what it is,” Peterlin said. “We watched the man basically get degloved in a game against the Bears. He stayed out there and tried to play through it all. He’s just a gamer. The ball isn’t going to be a perfect tight spiral when you have a blister on your throwing hand on one of your fingers. That’s just the reality of it. He’s still out there grinding, locating passes where they need to be.”

This minor finger issue arises at a troubling time for Sanders. Watson seems to have pulled away in the race for the QB1 job by replacing Sanders in first-team practices on days the coaching staff intended for the younger QB. So far, Sanders was going toe-to-toe with Watson for the QB1 job. However, with the coaches relegating him to second-team duties, where he also split time with Dillon Gabriel, it looks like Sanders is out of the running.

The head coach later clarified that it was just a compensation since Sanders has “gotten a few more reps with the ones.” But it wasn’t just a one-off; Sports Illustrated’s Nick Pedone noted that Sanders being switched out on Day 10 was the second such occurrence in three practices.

For now, the Browns are looking forward to the preseason game against the Chicago Bears, Buffalo Bills, and the New England Patriots. Monken plans on giving each of the top quarterbacks a chance to start and evaluate their performance. Sanders has been listed as a co-starter on the Browns’ unofficial depth chart, insider Mary Kay Cabot reported.

With Cleveland’s preseason evaluation approaching its most important stage, even a minor reduction in Sanders’ throwing workload could affect the number of opportunities he’d get.