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A year ago, quarterback Shedeur Sanders stood on a practice field in Berea, Ohio, having been the victim of the worst draft slide since Will Levis. “Legendary” was expected to be selected in the top ten at the very least, with the first round being an absolute given. Then, he slid, and slid, and slid some more.
To make matters even worse, when he was eventually selected 144th overall deep into the fifth round, Sanders was selected by arguably the one team no QB ever wants to be selected by: Cleveland. Three other quarterbacks — Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett, Dillon Gabriel — were already getting first-team reps twenty yards away on that Ohio practice field while the player every draft analyst had mocked top-ten stands at the back of the line, completing short routes against air, waiting for his turn on a field that was never supposed to include him this far down the pecking order. And that’s without mentioning the perennially injured cap killer Deshaun Watson.
Still, Sanders was the last player off the practice field that day. Nearly thirty minutes after everyone else had gone inside. It should then come as no surprise to hear that eventually he climbed from QB4 into the Browns’ starting role. Now, with the 2026 campaign beginning to loom on the horizon, the mandate is clear: Keep the starting berth in his second year. And he isn’t the only sophomore with a big 2026 ahead of him.
Jaxson Dart
He never sulked. That deserves to be said plainly. Jaxson Dart sat behind Russell Wilson for three full weeks while the Giants sleepwalked to 0-3, leapfrogged Jameis Winston on the depth chart without making a scene, and quietly waited for an organization to hand him the keys it had already, instinctively, given him.
When they finally did, he seized a sleeping giant of a franchise by the throat — 2,272 passing yards, 15 touchdowns, five interceptions, 487 rushing yards, and nine rushing scores across 14 games, closing with a 110.2 passer rating in a season finale most of the country had stopped watching. His team went 4-13, and still, there was genuine excitement about what was to come.
Then John Harbaugh walked through the door at MetLife Stadium, and every calculation changed. The former Ravens head coach doesn’t do reclamation projects. He doesn’t rebuild quarterbacks from scratch. He finds the intelligent, mobile, decisive signal-caller and constructs an entire world around him — and what he saw in Dart was, by all spring accounts, exactly the player he’s spent his career looking for.
Online betting sites remain optimistic about what 2026 will bring for both Dart and the Giants. The latest odds from one Canadian online casino and betting outlet list Harbaugh’s men as a +275 shot to reach the playoffs next term, still odds-against, but by no means the lottery ticket they were 12 months ago. However, improvements still need to be made if that dream is to become a reality.
Dart’s pocket presence under pressure needs to sharpen — his instinct to scramble before the pocket fully collapses costs him time and yards. But here’s the thing about correctable problems: they’re correctable. Better weapons (Isiah Likely, we’re looking at you). Better coach. Better scheme. Same Dart. That’s the entire thesis. Right player, right coach, right moment — the convergence is real, and by December, we’ll be talking about him in playoff picture conversations.
Tyler Shough
Six years of college football. Three different programs. A broken collarbone in 2021 that he didn’t get surgery on, which meant it broke again in 2022, the first time he took a hit. A fractured fibula in 2023. Tyler Shough has spent most of his adult life being interrupted by his own body, grinding through six seasons just to reach a draft where he slipped to the sixth round with essentially no hype, no buzz, and no expectation that any of this would work out.
Then Spencer Rattler led the Saints to a 23-3 humiliation in Tampa in Week 9, and Shough got the call. What followed is one of the quieter miracles of the 2025 season: a 26-year-old backup nobody had circled on their depth chart preview dragged a 2-10 football team to four wins in its final five games, finishing with 2,384 yards, 10 touchdowns, 6 interceptions, and a PFWA All-Rookie Team selection. The sixth-rounder nobody saw coming proved every skeptic wrong with poise and efficiency nobody saw coming either.
Now the Saints are building. Travis Etienne Jr.’s two-year deal gives Shough a legitimate run game for the first time — a chess piece that opens play-action, keeps defenses honest, and relieves a young quarterback of having to win every game by himself. David Edwards’ $47.4 million offensive line investment is arguably more meaningful for Shough’s development than any receiver signing could be; clean pockets are top-ten offseason acquisitions in their own right. Kellen Moore stays. That continuity dividend cannot be overstated.
Teams will come into 2026 with a full offseason of film on Shough, and he must push the ball downfield with more conviction and sustain his efficiency across 17 games. But the tools are quietly assembled. Don’t sleep on this.
Shedeur Sanders
Let’s turn our attention back to Sanders now.
Five rounds. One hundred and forty-four picks. Sanders sat in a room and watched quarterbacks he’d outplayed in college get called ahead of him while the consensus top-three grade on his name became a footnote. And to make matters worse, social media loved every second of it.
Cleveland then listed him fourth on the depth chart, denied him first-team reps throughout the summer, and eventually threw him into a Week 11 fire — no preparation, no real runway, no genuine chance — before apparently being surprised that the initial numbers were messy. Then, Sanders proceeded to lead his side to a win away at the Raiders in his first start in a masterclass in game management, before back-to-back victories against divisional rivals Pittsburgh and Cincinnati to close out the campaign, which should have done enough to seal his spot as QB1 in 2026.
His final line: a 56.6% completion rate, 1,400 yards, 7 touchdowns, 10 interceptions. The numbers look bad. They’re also an organizational indictment dressed up as a player evaluation. But those wins in the meat grinder that is the AFC North speak volumes, and Todd Monken knows it.
The new head coach has publicly praised Sanders’ “elite playmaking ability,” and the numbers suggest that his system — third-down efficiency, completion rate — maps directly onto what Sanders does well. Can he cut the interceptions? He must — ten picks in seven starts is mathematically unsustainable. But what changes everything is the full offseason program he was systematically denied last year; genuine first-team reps, genuine preparation, a coach who actually wants him there. The upside could be legendary; now he just has to prove it.
