CLEVELAND, Ohio — Shedeur Sanders is the last of the Browns’ four quarterbacks to enter the competition, but can he jump to the head of the class by the start of the season? The climb will be as steep as his fall to the fifth round of the NFL draft, where the Browns threw him a lifeline and traded up to No. 144 with the Seahawks to save him. He’ll have to beat out Steelers 2022 first-round pick Kenny Pickett, Browns 2025 third round pick Dillon Gabriel, and fan favorite Joe Flacco, the former Super Bowl MVP and 18-year veteran — possibly in that order. It won’t be easy, considering the Browns passed on Sanders six times in the draft, including at No. 94 when they opted for Gabriel out of Oregon over the player widely-regarded throughout the pre-draft cycle as the No. 2 prospect behind Cam Ward. The Browns were perfectly prepared for the draft to come and go without Sanders on their roster, and only traded up to grab him because the “steep discount” was too good to pass up. Therefore, he’ll have to outperform the other three quarterbacks on the roster, and might not get as many reps as he wants or needs at the outset to come up the learning curve quickly. If the season started tomorrow, I believe Pickett would be the Browns’ QB1. He was the first move the Browns made at the start of the league year in March, trading quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson and a fifth round pick to the Eagles in exchange. The Browns made it clear to Pickett that he’d have a chance to compete for the starting job, and could control his own destiny with a stellar performance. The Browns viewed Pickett as a former first-round pick who showed good promise early on, but was thrust into a challenging situation. He had an embattled offensive coordinator in Matt Canada who was fired in November of Pickett’s second season, and two mercurial receivers in George Pickens and Diontae Johnson, who agreed to terms Monday on a one-year deal with the Browns. Still, Pickett, 26, managed to go 14-10 in his two seasons with the Steelers, including 2-1 against the Browns. With a 7-5 mark in 2023, he helped the Steelers earn a wild card berth before suffering a late season-ending ankle injury and missing the first round loss to the Ravens. He might still be there today competing for the starting job this season if he hadn’t asked to be traded last offseason when the Steelers signed Russell Wilson as their starter. The Steelers obliged, shipping him to the Eagles along with a 2024 fourth-round pick in exchange for a 2024 third-round pick and two 2025 seventh-round picks. Pickett went on to win a Super Bowl as Jalen Hurts’ backup, and got some excellent coaching from offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, who left to take the Saints head coaching job. Moore, who got Hurts back on track last year, saw tremendous growth in Pickett from OTAs to his late season victory over the Cowboys in relief of Hurts, and the Browns hope to pick it up from there. Ideally for the Browns, Pickett will enjoy the same kind of success in his second or third chance that other former first-round picks such as Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield have. He certainly intends to win the job, and will have a good supporting cast, with a veteran offensive line, some Pro Bowlers in Jerry Jeudy, David Njoku and Johnson, and a revamped running game with rookies Quinshon Judkins and Dylan Sampson. The Browns like that Pickett makes good decisions, doesn’t turn the ball over much and has the upside to make more big plays than he has, especially in this quarterback-friendly West Coast scheme. While most folks believe the Browns signed Flacco to pick up where he left off in 2023 — when he went 4-1 down the stretch and led the Browns to a wild card berth at 11-6 — the Browns didn’t clamor to sign him at the start of free agency last month, waiting a full month until the veteran QB market had dried up. They were prepared to let him sign elsewhere and not counting on him as their bridge quarterback in 2025. They’re thrilled to have him, but at $4 million for this season, with incentives worth up to $13 million, they aren’t handing him the starting job. In fact, they didn’t even articulate to him that he was competing for the starting job, saying instead that they had no preconceived notions on how it will go. Of course, he’ll compete for it like everyone else, but the messaging seemed different for Pickett. In the end, Flacco, despite his cannon arm, might not even necessarily have as much of a shot as Gabriel, whom the Browns identified early on in the draft process as a possible quarterback of the future. The Browns obviously like Gabriel more than Sanders based on drafting him higher, and believe he’s a perfect fit for Stefanski’s scheme. Gabriel is short (5-11, 205), but plays bigger and with a ton of moxie. The FBS record-holder with 63 starts, Gabriel is “very accurate, very poised, throws with anticipation, good mobility. We just thought he had a really well-rounded game,” Berry said. As for Sanders, the Berry views him “as a highly accurate pocket passer. He does a really good job of protecting the ball. He has enough of the physical characteristics, whether it’s arm strength or mobility. Like all young players, there are things to improve. Much has been said about the number of sacks he’s taken. Some of that is environment and some of that is improvement on his end, for sure. But he has probably a little bit more of a, call it retro or classic style of play.” Sanders arrived in Cleveland on Tuesday and will get down to the business of trying to prove everyone wrong who let him tumble to the fifth-round, the worst slide for a quarterback in NFL draft history. He has much to prove, including that he’s not an attitude risk like he’s been portrayed, and that his Hall of Fame father and coach, Deion Sanders, won’t meddle. The Browns aren’t worried about those things as much as some other teams were, and genuinely liked Sanders during the pre-draft process. But they decided he wasn’t necessarily the quarterback for them, at least not at No. 2 or anywhere else until No. 144, and now it’s up to him to prove they made the right decision. But Sanders, like Flacco, will be playing from behind in this four-way battle for the starting job. Pickett and Gabriel were pegged by the Browns early on as QBs they believed in, and they’ll likely be the frontrunners at the outset, with Pickett having the early edge to win the job. Flacco and Sanders were added to the mix late in their respective cycles, and will likely have to climb their way up the depth chart. On or around cutdown day in August, some of them will be available in trades, and Flacco, 40, is one who could draw interest from a team if they lose their starter early on. It was the same with Jameis Winston last season after Thompson-Robinson tied him for the backup job. The four QBs, with their mix of styles, sizes and arm strengths, will bring out the best in each other. Dividing up the reps will be a challenge, but it’s almost time to let it fly, and let the best man win.