As Shedeur Sanders continues to compete for a spot with the Cleveland Browns entering the 2025 season, at least one NFL insider thinks the team is hoping the rookie quarterback doesn't succeed.

Andscape's Justin Tinsley wrote some of the Browns' actions since drafting Sanders seems to suggest there are "people within that organization who are quietly, if not actively, rooting for his downfall."

Tinsley's argument is based in part around the comments from Browns owner Jimmy Haslam on Tuesday that general manager Andrew Berry was the driving force behind Sanders being selected in the fifth round of the 2025 draft.

One part of Hasleam's comments, in particular, stood out: "If you'd have told me... Friday night that y'all are gonna pick Shedeur, I would [have said] that's not happening."

The wording here is interesting because, as Tinsley points out, Haslam makes it sound like he didn't want Sanders "to begin with", not that he didn't think he "was going to be available in the fifth round."

Since the Browns have four quarterbacks on the roster who are all jockeying for their spot on the depth chart, Sanders hasn't been able to get a lot of work against the starting defense.

Sanders did get his first reps against the first-team defense on Wednesday. There is an opening for him to make a move up the depth chart with Kenny Pickett out of action for the time being due to a hamstring injury suffered in practice on July 26.

The Browns are incentivized to help Sanders as much as they can. In addition to their own needs at quarterback, they could also use him as a trade chip before the start of the regular season if another team's starter suffers an injury at the position.

It's a difficult tightrope for the coaching staff to walk because their first priority is to put the best team on the field in 2025, especially considering Kevin Stefanski could be on the hot seat if things don't go well, so they can't necessarily focus as much attention on Sanders' development.

There's also the possibility that Sanders won't be a good NFL player. When you think about how many hoops teams will jump through with the hope of finding even a decent starting quarterback, the fact that every team passed on him in the draft multiple times before he was selected suggests there's not a lot of enthusiasm for his pro prospects.

Sanders was also a very polarizing prospect with scouting reports ranging from labeling him a first-round talent to thinking of him as an "overhyped game manager." He also reportedly had at least one bad interview, when he met with officials from the New York Giants.

The truth of Sanders' ability probably lies somewhere in between being a top talent in the 2025 draft and wildly overrated, but he at least deserves the same chance other first-year players get to show what they can do.

If Tinsley is right and the Browns don't want Sanders to succeed, that just adds another chapter to the already-long book explaining why the franchise has by far the worst record in the NFL since returning to the league in 1999.