The Shedeur Sanders vs. Deshaun Watson quarterback battle is intriguing beyond football

Deshaun Watson and Shedeur Sanders are engaged in one of the most intriguing preseason quarterback competitions in recent NFL history. The Cleveland Browns‘ starting quarterback battle is yet another footnote in the long evolution of Black quarterbacks climbing Jacob’s Ladder.

This season, Watson and Sanders each have much to prove and many doubts to erase.

Watson played the first half of Saturday’s 34-10 loss in Chicago, beginning his preseason campaign by completing 11-of-15 passes and leading two scoring drives. Sanders started the second half and completed 6-of-11 passes for 79 yards but threw a bad interception on his final play.

The real challenge, however, is faced by first-year head coach Todd Monken, who by now must realize Watson’s greatest days are behind him and Sanders may not have any great days in his future.

Saturday’s preseason opener was Watson’s first time playing on an NFL field since 2024; the 30-year-old has started just 19 regular-season games since arriving in Cleveland in 2022. He tore his right Achilles tendon in October 2024 and sat out the 2025 season after undergoing a second Achilles surgery in January of that year.

Still, Monken was ecstatic about what he saw from the 2017 first-round pick.

“It was awesome,” Monken said. “It was so cool to watch him play. I get all of the frustration by fans [and] himself. But for him to come back and work like he did is an unbelievable credit to him. And then to go out there, he was having fun today. And that is so cool. And I thought he really functioned at a high level. But it was fun watching him play and watching us put the next step forward and see where we’re at.”

Watson agreed with Monken.

“I had fun with the guys, enjoying myself, smiling, getting hit a little bit, going through certain situations, talking to Coach on the headsets,” he said after Saturday’s game. “Everything was good. To be back out there, I was definitely having fun.”

The reality may be that Cleveland has two high-profile, backup-caliber quarterbacks fighting for the starting job. But the battle between Watson and Sanders is intriguing to me for reasons that go beyond football.

Over the past few NFL seasons, my Andscape colleague Jason Reid and I have documented the phenomenal evolution of African American quarterbacks.

We’ve both written books on the subject and have documented Black quarterback benchmarks: the first to start an NFL playoff game (James Harris, 1974); the first to lead his team to a Super Bowl victory (Doug Williams, 1988); the first to be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame (Warren Moon, 2007). In 2023, Jalen Hurts and Patrick Mahomes became the first two Black quarterbacks to face each other in a Super Bowl.

Because so few NFL rosters in history have included two high-profile Black quarterbacks, Cleveland’s quarterback competition is the league’s first attention-demanding battle between two Black quarterbacks aiming for a starting job. Byron Leftwich and David Garrard competed for the Jacksonville Jaguars’ starting spot in 2006, but neither of them had the résumé of Watson nor the hype surrounding Sanders.

The competition between Sanders and Watson is not about a Black man overcoming institutional bias or proving that he has the “necessities” to play the position. These are two Black men representing different generations — Watson, 30, a millennial, and Sanders, 24, from Generation Z — vying to lead a franchise without a title since 1964 or a great quarterback since the 1950s.

I don’t have a sentimental favorite in the competition, but I do appreciate each player’s substantial challenge.

Watson is looking for redemption after suffering a steep fall from grace in 2022 after violating the NFL’s personal conduct policy. He was suspended for 11 games, fined $5 million and suffered perhaps irreparable damage to his reputation as a result of the sexual assault allegations he faced.

Sanders’ burden has more to do with perceived entitlement. Blessed and haunted by the shadow of his Hall of Fame father and former coach, Deion Sanders, Shedeur Sanders finally faces a reckoning: Can he stand on his own two feet? Is he a starting-caliber NFL quarterback, or a career backup?

Although, when a reporter asked if he had ever been in an actual quarterback competition before, Sanders said, “Yeah, I have. Me vs. myself.”

Unlike Sanders — a fifth-round pick in the 2025 draft who began last season as the third-stringer and sat until Week 11 — Watson achieved early greatness in the NFL. A national champion at Clemson, he went No. 12 in the 2017 draft and took the league by storm, earning Pro Bowl bids in each of his first three seasons and leading Houston to back-to-back AFC South division titles and playoff berths from 2018-19.

On the strength of his early accomplishments and in hopes he could be the miracle worker they’ve longed for, the Browns acquired Watson in 2022 after he demanded out of Houston, signing him to a five-year, fully guaranteed $230 million contract — the biggest in league history at the time.

Both Watson and the Browns are still trying to live up to that contract, and it has been a struggle. Monken said Saturday he felt that if Watson beats out Sanders, he can be a starting NFL quarterback. Watson said he’s never questioned that.

“That’s not anything I doubted in myself,” he said after Saturday’s game against the Bears. “That’s the reason why I worked hard these last two years to get back to that.

“Had some challenges with some injuries, suspension and now being able to get a full offseason and continue to work my way back up, it takes time. At the same time, I don’t doubt myself anyway that I can’t play at a high level.”

Watson presumably is set for life financially thanks to his Browns contract. But can he ever recover his good name?

Perhaps.

In a society that values money and winning as highly as we do, leading Cleveland to a winning season and the playoffs could go a long way toward redeeming Watson’s image — and validating the Browns’ unprecedented contract.

On Saturday, Watson was asked if he thought he had done enough to earn the starting job.

“It goes back to what Todd and the organization and the coaching staff want,” he said. “Every opportunity that I get, I want to continue to prove, I want to continue to take one step forward. Every day is going to be a challenge, but that’s the whole thing about this NFL. It’s a business, and every day’s a challenge and you have to continue to prove yourself.”

In the AFC North, the door is open for Sanders and Watson to achieve their respective goals. Aging quarterback Aaron Rodgers is in Pittsburgh, oft-injured Joe Burrow is in Cincinnati, and Lamar Jackson is a year older and with a new coaching staff in Baltimore.

I have no idea who gives Cleveland the better chance to win, though I suspect Watson will start the season at quarterback. But each player has so many doubts to address, it will be intriguing to watch them climb that mountain.

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