Travis Kelce Issues Bold Message on Browns QB Shedeur Sanders

New Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders has a pair of high-profile Ohio natives in his corner: Jason and Travis Kelce.

The Kelce brothers — longtime Browns fans at heart, despite playing for other NFL franchises — are excited to see Sanders get his shot in Cleveland. Travis Kelce believes Sanders is a strong fit for the team and says the chip on his shoulder from his draft-day slide will only fuel his drive to succeed.

“I love this for Cleveland. I really do, man. The Browns fan deep down in my heart is just like, ‘(expletive) yeah,'” Travis Kelce said on their “New Heights” podcast. “You get a swag champ who works his (expletive) off and has something to prove now. He’s got that chip on his shoulder.”

Travis watched some film on Sanders and could not understand why he fell to the fifth round.

“I’m not sure why he dropped — whether it was the interviews or what they saw on film. What I saw on film, I thought he was a way higher pick,” Travis Kelce said. “I think that’s all that should matter. It doesn’t seem like he’s a terrible person. He’s just a motivated football player who is part of a big football family.”

Jason Kelce: Shedeur Sanders Has Path to Success With Browns

The Browns did their homework on Sanders before the draft. A sizable contingent from the team, including owner Jimmy Haslam, attended Colorado’s pro day to evaluate both Sanders and Travis Hunter, who ultimately went No. 2 overall to the Jaguars. Cleveland also took Sanders out to dinner and brought him in for a private workout.

Jason Kelce believes concerns about Sanders went deeper than just his personality or anything that surfaced during team interviews. Still, he lands in a promising situation with the Browns, who are hungry to find their quarterback of the future.

“Maybe these off-field things mattered a little bit, but the bottom line is teams just do not think the potential of Shedeur Sanders panning out at the next level is high enough to warrant an earlier pick. Teams get this wrong all the time,” Jason Kelce said. “They got it wrong with Brock Purdy; they got it wrong with Tom Brady. This is not an exact science. I’m happy Shedeur Sanders gets an opportunity to go to Cleveland because clearly Cleveland wants to replace their starting quarterback. They picked two of them in the draft.”

Browns Didn’t Plan to Draft Multiple Quarterbacks

As Jason Kelce mentioned, Sanders will be competing with fellow rookie quarterback Dillion Gabriel, whom the Browns reached for in the third round. Cleveland didn’t enter the draft looking to select two quarterbacks, but felt the opportunity to add Sanders late was too good to pass up.

“We felt like it wasn’t necessarily the plan going into the weekend to select two quarterbacks,” Browns general manager Andrew Berry told reporters after the draft. “But as we talk about, we do believe in best player available, we do believe in positional value, and we didn’t necessarily expect him to be available in the fifth round. We love adding competition to every position room and adding him to compete with the guys that are already in there. We felt like that was the appropriate thing to do.”

Berry also dismissed the notion that owner Jimmy Haslam pushed for the team to select Sanders.

Sanders and Gabriel will report for rookie minicamp on May 9.