The Cleveland Browns have a four-pronged quarterback competition this offseason, complete with a pair of rookies, the backup quarterback of last season’s Super Bowl champs and a 40-year-old veteran who temporarily rescued the franchise as NFL Comeback Player of the Year in 2023.
With Deshaun Watson still recovering from the Achilles tear he suffered this past January, the spotlight is on Dillon Gabriel, Shedeur Sanders, Kenny Pickett and Joe Flacco.
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Wide receiver Diontae Johnson, a one-time Pro Bowler who signed with the Browns this spring, has a prediction for which quarterback will come out on top this summer.
“I think they are going to roll with Kenny for right now,” Johnson said while appearing on the “Sports and Suits” podcast earlier this month.
“I’ve been seeing Kenny going like right now with the ones. Then Joe will come in,” Johnson said. “I think they are probably going to roll with [Kenny] just to see, like, he’s coming off a season with Philly and having a Super Bowl. So I think they are going to stick with him through the preseason. Then, you know, they can live with Joe and what he brings to the table.”
Johnson is hoping to turn the page after a 2024 campaign that was memorable for all the wrong reasons. He split time with three teams: the Carolina Panthers, the Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans. He made headlines in his second stop when the Ravens suspended him one game for refusing to enter a Week 13 game against the Philadelphia Eagles.
Johnson’s best days came in Pittsburgh, where he spent 2019 to ’23. Johnson and Pickett were Steelers teammates for two seasons, in 2022 and ’23. During that span, Pickett went 14-10 as the starter, and Johnson caught a total of 137 passes for 1,599 yards and five touchdowns.
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The Steelers drafted Pickett out of the University of Pittsburgh with the No. 20 pick in the 2022 draft. Pickett got the first chance to succeed Ben Roethlisberger, but despite his winning record, he posted a meager 13:13 touchdown-to-interception ratio in his two seasons as QB1.
Pittsburgh moved on from Pickett ahead of the 2024 season, trading him to the Eagles that offseason. The Steelers, meanwhile, entered last season with Russell Wilson and Justin Fields in their quarterback room, neither of whom is still with the team.
Pickett backed up Eagles star Jalen Hurts last season, appearing in five games during a Super Bowl run. He completed 25 of 42 passes (59.5%) while recording 291 yards through the air, two touchdowns and one interception. He won his only start of the season, a 41-7 drubbing of the NFC East rival Dallas Cowboys.
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Pickett even got to take the field during the Super Bowl, stepping in for garbage time snaps during the Eagles’ blowout victory over the Kansas City Chiefs.
He took his ring with him to Cleveland in March, when the Browns traded for him in exchange for quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson and the 2025 fifth-round draft pick Cleveland had acquired from Detroit.
Pickett is only 27 years old. He could be next in an increasingly long line of former first-round quarterbacks who find success in the second or third acts of their NFL careers.
But in order for Johnson’s summer prediction to come true, Pickett has to beat out a still-strong-armed Flacco, a 2024 Heisman Trophy finalist in Gabriel and last year’s Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year in Sanders.
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