The quarterback-challenged Browns have a different kind of challenge at the quarterback position.
They have too many.
At a time when many outsiders presume they won’t take Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett, Dillon Gabriel, and Shedeur Sanders to training camp, the team is putting out the word that it will strongly consider carrying four quarterbacks on the 53-man roster.
Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com reports that there’s a chance they’ll enter — and exit — the 2025 regular season without moving on from any of them.
“Thanks in part to low base salaries and cap numbers for all of them, they can afford to keep all four from a financial standpoint, and it also makes sense from a roster building standpoint,” Cabot writes.
It’s definitely doable from a cap standpoint. The quartet of QBs has a combined cap number of $7.6 million, roughly one-fifth of Deshaun Watson’s $35.971 million cap charge for 2025 (next year, Watson’s cap number spikes to more than $80 million).
But the impact of having four quarterbacks on the active roster shouldn’t be minimized. Although Cabot downplays (surely because the Browns have downplayed to her) having four quarterbacks on the 53-man roster by saying “the Browns can find a way to keep all four QBs by borrowing a spot from another position, even if it’s just until the trade deadline,” giving up a roster spot along the offensive line or defensive line or running back room or some other position is a pretty big deal — especially as players suffer short-term injuries that make them unavailable on a given Sunday.
Few if any teams ever have four quarterbacks on the 53-man roster. Most stick with two.
It’s entirely possible that the Browns are putting out the notion that they plan to take all four quarterbacks to training camp in order to create some/any trade leverage. If no one believes they’ll keep quarterbacks in the fold for camp (one of them surely won’t get the reps he needs to compete), no one will be willing to offer anything for the odd man out (we continue to think that, if there is one, it’s Pickett).
If the Browns do indeed bring all four to camp, the question of whether they’ll keep four will linger through the deadline for cutting the rosters to 53 and until the trade deadline.
If the Browns don’t get an acceptable offer for Pickett before it’s time to cut the roster from 90 to 53, one potential short-term approach could be to cut Flacco, sign him to the practice squad, and bring him up to the active roster every week. It’s the 54-man roster trick, where a vested veteran who doesn’t have to pass through waivers (until the trade deadline) plays along with the approach.
Regardless, the Browns need a plan for the kind of quarterback complication they didn’t expect when they committed $230 million to Watson. With Watson injured (again), the question isn’t whether they have a replacement. The question is whether they have too many.
At least they employ a Chief Strategy Officer. Even if, more often than not, that position seems to be cover for the whims of ownership.
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