Ralph Vacchiano
NFL journalist
For most of the first two nights of the NFL draft, the biggest surprise was the fact that the quarter-rear of Colorado Shemer Sanders was not selected.
But then, at the end of the third round, the Browns of Cleveland found a way to exceed this.
When they made their selection with the 90th choice in total on Friday evening – their fifth choice of the first two days – they did not just transmit Sanders again. They transmitted it in favor of a quarter of a quarter that no one thought that the first three laps. Cleveland took the quarter of Oregon Dillon Gabriel, a 24-year-old who is only 5 feet 11 inches and was a six-year starter in three different schools.
No one, nowhere, thought he had a chance to be written in front of Sanders. At this point, Sanders already had a miserable project experience. But the choice of browns had to make it exponentially worse.
Of course, for brown, it was perfectly logical. Obviously, they are desperate for a quarter of the future, because their current QB room consists of Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett, 40, who has torn his Achilles twice. But like everyone else in the NFL, they obviously reassessed Sanders, who was not long ago, was widely considered one of the two best quarters of this project.
Gabriel would have had the chance to do the top 10 on most lists, but the Browns have decided in a way that it was worth making sure that the fifth quarter-roam. They seemed to love the vast game film they saw of him during his stay in the center of Florida, Oklahoma then Oregon. And they had a very good glance at the senior Bowl, where the assistant head coach of Browns and the coordinator of the special teams Bubba Ventrone led against his team.
“The very precise, very precise, very precise university career, throws good mobility with anticipation,” said Browns Andrew Berry. “We just thought he had a very well balanced match. The biggest negative you say about it is that it has no ideal height, but it is not something that we had the impression of having appeared in his game.”
Its height of 5-11 may not have been a problem at the university, but it often takes a special talent to make it a non-problem among the pros. Gabriel clearly overcome it during his six college seasons, launching only 32 interceptions in the 64 games he played. In two seasons at Oklahoma (2022-23), he launched 55 affected and 12 interceptions. And it was exceptional in one year for the Ducks, completing 72.9% of its passes for 3,857 yards, 30 affected and six interceptions. He finished third in the Heisman vote.
At no time did anyone seem to consider him at the same level as Sanders – a player who did not long ago, draft experts thought that the browns could take with the second overall choice. In fact, not only was Gabriel considered a much less important perspective than the other four quarters that had already been written – Cam Ward, Jaxson Dart, Tyler Shough and Jalen Milroe – but he was rarely mentioned in the next group with Texas Quinn Ewers, Will Howard and Syracuse de Kyle McCord.
So what do the Browns think they know that no one else does?
“We really felt strongly felt about Dillon throughout this process,” said Berry. “We estimated that it was a really strong and very good perspective. We think he is an excellent player.”
They were also not afraid of his age. “The guy has been a quarter-back leaving since the age of 18,” said Browns coach Kevin Stefanski. “So we did not have the impression that it was a major detriment in terms of his profile.”
They were not worried either for its size. “It didn’t hold him in his career,” said Stefanski. “It has been this size for a long time, and it finds a way to do it.”
Sanders, of course, did it in Colorado, has set up better figures and measures two more inches. But something about the child of Deion Sanders clearly did not attend the NFL. We expected that it was a first round choice, but it awaits the fourth round when day 3 of the draft begins on Saturday.
By the way, the fourth round was the most optimistic projection for the place where Gabriel was going to be selected. Given how NFL’s assessors consider this quarter class as a whole, it seemed more likely that it would end up being selected even later than that.
But everything you need is one, and for Gabriel that it was the Browns, who have a long story to make truly strange quarter decisions. Despite all the reasons – real or imagined – which have made Sanders take place on this wild free fall, he thought he was the safer perspective. He was undoubtedly humiliated by his experience project. The Browns could have let him rest for a year, perhaps two, so that they could work on his faults and help him reach everyone considerable that everyone believed him.
Instead, they will try their luck on Gabriel, whose ceiling is almost certainly lower. Maybe they will be right, but they work against their own story of a cross quarter. Sanders would have been considered a flight for them at the end of the Tour 3. But they reached their quarter of the future instead of obtaining a potential star.
Ralph Vacchiano is an NFL journalist for Fox Sports. He spent the previous six years to cover the giants and Plane For Sny TV in new YorkAnd before that, 16 years old covering the Giants and the NFL for the New York Daily News. Follow him on Twitter at @Ralphvacchiano.
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