Why Kenny Pickett Makes the Most Sense as Browns’ Starting QB in 2025

BEREA, OHIO - JUNE 11: Kenny Pickett #8 of the Cleveland Browns throws a pass after Cleveland Browns mandatory minicamp at CrossCountry Mortgage Campus on June 11, 2025 in Berea, Ohio. (Photo by Nick Cammett/Diamond Images via Getty Images)

Posted By: County Sports Network July 24, 2025

Cleveland’s Quarterback Chaos: Who Starts, and Why Pickett Has the Edge

The Browns could do anything regarding its quarterback situation this season.

Indeed, there seems to be no real consensus even from those in the know as to what will happen.

For what it’s worth, this is what I think will happen:

Kenny Pickett will be the starter coming out of training camp and the preseason.

It just makes sense, for a lot of reasons.

Starting longtime veteran Joe Flacco would be the wrong move for a team that finished 3-14 last season and, with a rebuild beginning, may, unfortunately, be in that ramshackle neighborhood once again this year. Flacco proved in 2023 in his first foray with the team when he stepped in late in the year and led the Browns to the playoffs that he can come in at any time and steady the ship when big waves start rocking it. The Browns really need that, for that rocking will almost certainly come. A quarterback like that is so valuable.

Rookies Dillon Gabriel and Shadeur Sanders have potential — real potential — but they’re nowhere near ready to start now, especially on an offense with some holes. Forcing them onto the field before their time could ruin them for good. That’s the last thing the Browns want. Too many young quarterbacks over the years in this expansion era have suffered that fate.

That leaves Pickett. But the fact he’s the last man standing is hardly the only reason to start him. Rather, it’s just a small part of the equation.

Pickett is not a rookie but instead a young veteran with a year of starting experience with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2023 and then a year of standing on the sideline with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2024 and watching all the good stuff happen as they won the Super Bowl.

There are a growing number of productive quarterbacks in the NFL who, after struggling and bouncing around in their early years, figure it out and do much better in their second and third tries. The Browns are rolling the dice and betting that that will happen with him. It’s the most secure path for the Browns, for if he can turn it around, it may change the way they go forward, particularly in the 2026 NFL Draft, when they are expected to have a high pick.

Steve King

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