Colorado Professional Athletes

The Sanders Circus Comes to Cleveland — and It Brought Friends

Four Colorado alumni are making noise across the NFL this week, and the thread connecting most of them runs straight through Cleveland.

The QB controversy that won't quit

Shedeur Sanders hasn't taken a regular-season snap for the Browns yet, but he's already the most talked-about player on the roster. After Deshaun Watson was throttled 34-10 by the Jaguars in Week 1 — a game that also featured fellow Buff Travis Hunter catching one pass for 8 yards on the other sideline — the Browns' quarterback room is suddenly a very loud conversation.

Reports surfaced that Cleveland was weighing a QB switch ahead of their Week 2 matchup against Tampa Bay, with ESPN's Seth Walder predicting a change was coming. Browns players have reportedly expressed interest in seeing what Sanders can do, though the team ultimately stuck with Watson heading into the game. The uncomfortable wrinkle: Watson's contract situation makes a clean switch complicated regardless of performance on the field.

Former Brown and Colorado alum Jarvis Landry weighed in publicly, backing Sanders — though reports framed his comments with nuance, stopping short of an outright call to start the rookie. Travis Hunter, Sanders' former Colorado teammate now with Jacksonville, was more direct in his public support, pushing for Sanders to get his shot.

Horn's wild week: cut, claimed, reunited

No Colorado alum had a more eventful seven days than Jimmy Horn Jr. The second-year wideout muffed a punt in Carolina's blowout loss to Chicago in Week 1 — a 59-37 drubbing — and was released by the Panthers the following day to make roster room for linebacker Tyrel Dodson. Carolina's brass expressed hope Horn would clear waivers and return to the practice squad.

He did not clear waivers. The Browns claimed him, reuniting Horn with Sanders — his college quarterback at Colorado for two seasons. CBS Sports confirmed the signing, and the move had a behind-the-scenes assist: Deion Sanders, Colorado's head coach and Shedeur's father, said he "made some calls" on Horn's behalf to help his former player land on his feet. The Panthers, now without Horn, quickly moved to sign a replacement receiver of their own.

The reunion gives Sanders a familiar target if — and when — he gets his opportunity under center in Cleveland.

Landman draws a fine

Out in Los Angeles, Nate Landman had a quieter but still notable week. The Rams linebacker was hit with an NFL-issued fine, part of a group of punishments handed down to Landman, a Rams teammate, and two 49ers players. Details on the specific infraction were not disclosed in league communications, but the punishment was confirmed. Landman also appeared limited on the Rams' first Week 2 injury report, alongside several other Los Angeles defenders.

The bigger picture

It's early in the 2026 season, but Colorado's footprint across the NFL is impossible to ignore. The Sanders-Horn reunion in Cleveland is the kind of story that transcends the transaction wire — a muffed punt, a phone call from Coach Prime, and a college connection landing two Buffs on the same NFL roster within days. Whether it translates into wins for Cleveland is another question entirely. With a 21.5% win probability against Tampa Bay in Week 2, per iPredicta, the Browns have bigger problems than their depth chart. But the Colorado alumni network, at least, is thriving.

Two former Buffaloes are walking into Week 1 with their NFL futures very much unresolved — and the whole league is watching.

Shedeur Sanders: The Backup Who Won't Stay Quiet

The Cleveland Browns handed Deshaun Watson the Week 1 starting nod, but don't mistake that for a settled situation. Head coach Todd Monken made the call and publicly stated he doesn't care whether fans back it — a posture that reads less like confidence and more like a man bracing for blowback.

That blowback is already here. A Sporting News beat reporter characterized Watson's grip on the job as a "quiet no-confidence vote," and Browns legend Joel Bitonio delivered a pointed warning to Shedeur Sanders about the flaw — apparently a turnover tendency — that dogged his rookie year and followed him into the 2026 preseason. Sanders looked sharper overall this camp, Bitonio acknowledged, but "sharper" and "starter-ready" aren't the same thing in Cleveland's building right now.

The Browns' assistant GM added fuel to the fire by declining to say whether the team has fielded trade offers for its quarterbacks — a cryptic non-answer that lit up every NFL rumor mill in the building. Meanwhile, predictions from around the league suggest Sanders' roster role for the opener could still shift.

Away from the football noise, Sanders made a detour that turned heads: he showed up on the sidelines for Colorado's season-opening upset of Georgia Tech in Atlanta, walking off the field with his father, Deion Sanders, in a moment that went viral. Deion got emotional postgame, and the image of the two together was a reminder of just how much the Colorado-to-NFL pipeline has become a family story as much as a football one.

Watson's leash, by most accounts, is short. Whether Sanders gets to grab it — in Cleveland or elsewhere — is the question that will define his early career.

Travis Hunter: Two-Way Dream, One-Sided Reality

Across the AFC South, the Travis Hunter situation in Jacksonville is pulling in two directions at once, and the tension is only growing.

Hunter, the No. 2 overall pick in 2025 and a Heisman Trophy winner for the two-way work he did at Colorado, spent the last two weeks of training camp practicing exclusively at cornerback, per practice reports. That detail alone raised alarms — but Jaguars head coach Liam Coen has not budged from the two-way vision he sold on draft night, insisting the plan remains intact heading into the opener.

ESPN analysts aren't buying the spin. An ESPN insider dropped a pointed warning about Jacksonville's handling of Hunter ahead of Week 1, and Sports Illustrated laid out the case that the Jaguars need to be "hitting on all cylinders" for the two-way experiment to have any realistic future. The Sporting News went further: Hunter's sophomore season may be the make-or-break moment for whether that vision survives at all.

The stakes are significant. Hunter has the rare physical profile to play both ways at the NFL level — the Jaguars traded up to bet on it — but a rookie year that didn't go exactly as hoped has put pressure on 2026 to deliver proof of concept. If Jacksonville struggles and Hunter's snaps on offense remain limited, the two-way dream could quietly die before it ever really lived.

The Jaguars open their season against the Browns — meaning Sanders and Hunter could share a field in Week 1. That subplot alone is worth the price of admission.

Also Watching

Shilo Sanders, Shedeur's brother and a safety with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, was in the news for off-field reasons this week, testifying in an ongoing bankruptcy trial in Colorado where he is seeking to discharge an $11.89 million judgment against him.

The biggest story in the Colorado NFL universe this week has nothing to do with a touchdown or a highlight-reel play — it's about a roster decision that could reshape Shedeur Sanders' career trajectory before it ever really gets started.

Cleveland Browns head coach Todd Monken named Deshaun Watson the team's Week 1 starter, ending what had been billed as the NFL's most contentious quarterback battle of the summer. Sanders, the high-profile second-year signal-caller out of Colorado, entered training camp with a legitimate shot at the job. He didn't get it.

Monken explained his reasoning publicly, pointing to Watson's experience and what he described as the veteran's best chance to succeed in the final year of his contract. But the decision immediately drew scrutiny — former NFL quarterback Robert Griffin III suggested the call may not have been Monken's to make unilaterally, citing the contractual realities that made Watson effectively unmovable regardless of how camp played out. Watson carries a reported "poison pill" in his deal that made outright release a financial non-starter for Cleveland.

Sanders' New Reality — and Its Complications

Sanders initially settled into the backup role, but his footing there has since grown less certain. Dillon Gabriel, one of Cleveland's younger developmental quarterbacks, turned enough heads in camp to shake up the depth chart behind Watson. Monken confirmed Sanders would not play in the team's preseason finale, with Gabriel and Taylen Green getting extended reps instead — a notable omission for a player who was supposed to be QB2.

The ripple effects were immediate. NFL coaches and front-office personnel, speaking to CBS Sports, raised pointed questions about Sanders' long-term future in Cleveland and whether he has a viable path to a starting role anywhere in the league. Some sources indicated certain teams would decline to trade for him even if he became available.

That "if" is now looking more like "when" in some circles. A Browns analyst floated the possibility of a trade, and a wave of landing-spot speculation followed — with the Packers, Lions, and Dolphins among the teams mentioned as potential fits. Green Bay is notable in that context: fellow Colorado alum Brenden Rice is currently on the Packers' roster, though as a wide receiver — not exactly a factor in any quarterback equation.

The Bigger Picture

The Browns' internal stance, per Bleacher Report, is that they still think highly of Sanders despite the QB1 snub — cold comfort for a player drafted to be a franchise centerpiece. FanSided noted that Watson's Week 1 designation doesn't permanently close the door for Sanders in Cleveland; Watson is in the final year of his deal and has missed significant time due to injury in recent seasons. If Watson stumbles early, Sanders could find himself back in the conversation quickly.

Father Deion Sanders, characteristically, responded to the QB1 decision with a motivational quote about "yesterday" — keeping the family brand's focus forward even as the football questions pile up.

For now, Shedeur Sanders sits in a purgatory familiar to highly drafted quarterbacks who weren't handed the keys immediately: too prominent to quietly develop, too unsettled to feel secure. How Cleveland resolves that tension — trade, depth chart movement, or a Watson stumble — will be the Colorado story to watch as the regular season approaches.