The head coach names a Week 1 quarterback in the fourth sentence he says, and then stands there for twenty-five minutes while four people take turns asking him why. An hour later the quarterback talks at his locker with a towel around his neck.
Wednesday, September 9, 2026 · CrossCountry Mortgage Campus, Berea, Ohio · 12:05 p.m. and 1:20 p.m. ET
Twenty-five minutes. Nineteen people, plus the team’s own cameras. Transcript lightly cleaned for false starts.
MANSOUR: Afternoon. Couple of things and then you can have it.
Shedeur is starting Sunday. I made that call Monday night. I told Dillon and Taylen first thing Tuesday and then I told Shedeur, in that order, which is the order I wanted.
Health. Jeremiah didn’t practice today and he won’t tomorrow. Maliek did individual again, same as Monday. I’d put each of them a long way from Sunday and I’ll have the real designations for you Friday when the league makes me write them down.
We fly Saturday morning now instead of the afternoon. That’s a heat thing. It’s the reason we’ve practiced at one o’clock four days this week, which was not popular. It wasn’t popular with me either.
That’s what I’ve got. Go ahead.
Mary Kay Cabot · cleveland.comNick, the numbers he’s carrying are seven touchdowns, ten interceptions, a 68.1 rating and an 18.9 QBR that came in fifth-worst out of 696 qualifying seasons. That’s seven starts. You’ve told us all summer you’d decide on what you saw here, so what did you see here that those seven starts don’t have in them?
MANSOUR: Those are the numbers and I’m not going to argue with a single one of them. Seven and ten. The QBR one I looked up in February when I got here, and it’s as bad as you just said it was. He’d give you the same answer.
Okay. On third down we ask a receiver to win late, and the ball has to leave before he’s won it. If you wait until you can see him it’s already closing, and Sunday it’s closing against a defense that intercepted twenty-two throws last year. Shedeur throws it early. He was doing that at Colorado and he did it here in June against Mike Rutenberg’s stuff, which is harder than anything he sees at one o’clock Sunday.
The second thing is the front. We run a lot of play-action out of two backs and it asks the quarterback to turn his back to the defense and then find a rotated safety in about a second and a half when he comes back around. He’s good at that. He’s been good at that since May.
Mike Bajakian has had him at seven in the morning since the spring and the ball comes out of his hand differently than it did in the spring. That’s Mike. And he hasn’t missed a meeting since May, which I only know about because Mike keeps a sheet.
Tony Grossi · ESPN ClevelandI want to congratulate you. In ten days you have traded the best corner this team has had since Hanford Dixon, to Pittsburgh, and a receiver who stood in this room and said what he thought of you, and now on Sunday you’re starting the most famous backup quarterback in America against a thirteen-win football team that is favored by nine and a half. I have been doing this since 1984, I have sat through — this is entertainment. Tell me it isn’t.
MANSOUR: I’ll take the first part of it, Tony, because you’re right about the ten days. I moved two good football players inside two weeks and I’m the one who did it, so if it’s a mess it’s mine.
On Denzel. He’s from here. He played hurt here for eight years, for teams that had no business asking him to, and he was decent to me from my first week when he had every reason in the world not to be. I traded him. I think about it at night and I expect I’ll keep thinking about it. Priya Raman and Dave Sunseri ran those calls with Pittsburgh, start to finish, and I was in the room for maybe a third of it, so hand that one to them.
On Jerry, I’ve got nothing for you from up here and I won’t. He said what he thinks. I said what I think in January and I’m not saying it over again in September. He’s a good football player, he’s a Giant now, and I hope it goes well for him there.
And your last one. Am I doing this for the cameras. No. But I’d be a liar if I told you I hadn’t thought about how it’s going to look, because I’ve thought about it a lot. It didn’t move the decision.
Tony GrossiSo you have thought about it.
MANSOUR: Tony, I think about everything. You’ve met me.
(Laughter.)
Daryl Ruiter · 92.3 The FanTwo things. Is Gabriel the two or is Green. And is there a package for Green on Sunday.
MANSOUR: Dillon’s the two. Taylen’s the three, he’s up, he’ll dress. No package for him Sunday. There might be one later in the year and if there is you’ll see it before you hear me explain it.
I’m not going to walk you through the two men I didn’t pick, Daryl. That isn’t aimed at you, it’s the right question and somebody in here should ask it. What I’ll give you is that I picked. That’s mine. There wasn’t a Tuesday where somebody won it and I can’t hand you a scoreboard.
Dillon came into my office the morning after I told him and asked me what he has to do to be a starting quarterback in this league. Not on this team. In this league. He had it typed out. I kept it. And Taylen ran Trevor Lawrence for our defense on Monday at about ninety percent of the speed Trevor runs at, and the defense did not enjoy their afternoon.
So, that’s the chart. Dillon two, Taylen three.
Zac Jackson · The AthleticProcedurally, whose call is this? You call the offense, Travis Switzer coordinates it, Bajakian has the room. And separately — does naming a starter now have anything to do with the 2027 first from the Rams and what you do with it in April?
MANSOUR: Mine at the end, and there was no vote, I didn’t take one. Travis and Mike and I have been arguing about it since the second week of camp and Travis was on the other side of it for a good stretch. He’ll tell you that himself, he’s standing right over there. He was the one who made me go back through the June tape twice.
The pick is in April. I’ll know what it is in April. If people want to write that it’s a quarterback, that’s a reasonable guess and I’d be guessing with them.
Dana Kroll · News 5 ClevelandIs Hopkins on a snap count?
MANSOUR: No. He’ll play what the game gives him. If we throw it forty times he’ll be out there a lot, if it’s twenty he won’t. Nothing planned.
Dana KrollAnd Abanikanda, is he up?
MANSOUR: He’s up. Quinshon and Dylan have the work. Israel’s up for teams and he’ll get a series in there somewhere, probably.
Mary Kay Cabot · cleveland.comHas he ever come to you and told you he should have had this job already?
MANSOUR: Yeah. June. He sat where you’re sitting and told me he was the starter and that I was late.
I was glad he did it. I’d rather have it in my office in June than read it in a story in November. He’s easy to coach, which surprised a couple of people who called me about him in February, and I’ll tell you the reason. He asks his questions with the whole room sitting there. He’ll stop an install and say he doesn’t have it. Most quarterbacks come find you after, alone, so it doesn’t cost them anything.
We disagreed in June, we disagree about other stuff now, and I don’t think that’s going to stop. It’s fine. He’s twenty-four.
Daryl Ruiter · 92.3 The FanAre you nervous?
MANSOUR: Yes. Since Sunday. I wake up and it’s there before I’ve got my shoes on. I slept five hours last night and about four the night before, and then I drank a tremendous amount of coffee, which is why I’m talking at this speed.
Daryl RuiterYou always talk at that speed.
MANSOUR: That’s fair.
(Laughter.)
Dana Kroll · News 5 ClevelandWhat do you want to say to Browns fans today?
MANSOUR: Oh, good. I’ve been waiting eight months for somebody to ask me that and I was starting to think I’d have to bring it up myself.
Sunday you’re going to watch a quarterback that every single person in this country has a hard opinion about, and you have the best seat there is for it. I think you’re going to like watching him. I’m not promising you a result. I’m telling you I think you’re going to like watching him.
And a man in Parma wrote me in July. Four seats since 1979. He gave them up in 2022 and took them back in February and he’s done that twice now over the years, for different reasons, and he wrote to tell me his father’s name and where his father sat. He didn’t ask me for anything. There was no request in it anywhere. It’s pinned up by my door and I read it more than I need to.
Also a guy at the Giant Eagle on Bagley asked me last week if I was nervous and I said yes, and he said good, that’s the right answer. I’ve been carrying that around since.
Zac Jackson · The AthleticLast one. You’re starting a rookie center and a rookie right tackle in front of him against the league’s best run defense. Is that a concern or is it just September?
MANSOUR: I built that five. Every piece of it is a decision I made, in March and in April, and I made them knowing what week they’d first have to hold up. So yes, it’s on my mind.
George Warhop has had those two since May and they’ve had every look Jacksonville gives you, including the ones Campanile only shows twice a year. Whatever happens Sunday on the interior, that’s the front I picked in March.
Alright. Friday for the report. Thanks, everybody.
Same afternoon, at his locker. No lectern, no team moderator until the end.
He came out of the shower late and half the group had already given up and gone to find Grant Delpit. He was in a grey team hoodie with the sleeves pushed up and a towel over one shoulder and he did not sit down at any point.
He is different at this than he was a year ago. Faster, louder, more willing to be interrupted. He talked over two questions and answered a third one before it was finished.
How did you find out?
Tuesday morning. He came and got me before the walkthrough, before I even had my cleats on right. Told me in his office, wasn’t no speech attached to it. Told me the reason, told me it was Monday night that he got there, then asked me about my little cousin knee.
That’s him though. That’s just how he be.
You said in June you thought you’d already earned it. Did this take too long?
Yeah. Truly. I told him in June it was mine and he told me no in June, so.
I ain’t mad now. I was mad then. But he told me why, and he told me what it was gonna take, and every week he told me where I was at with it. Every week. So I knew. I didn’t like it, but I knew.
Last year was seven touchdowns and ten picks and a QBR near the bottom of the league. What’s different?
I know what it was. I don’t need to look it up, I know the numbers better than y’all know the numbers.
We here now. That was a whole different situation, different everything, and I’m not finna sit here and blame it on nobody. It was bad. I threw ten picks. So.
(Laughs.) And I be seeing all of it, by the way. Every week. Y’all think I don’t read it, I read all of it. Tony know. Me and Tony been doing this a while.
(Laughter from the group.)
Jacksonville is a nine-and-a-half-point favourite. Thirteen wins, first in the league against the run, twenty-two interceptions.
That’s a real defense. Campanile do a lot, they disguise it, they got two safeties standing there in the same spot every snap looking bored and then it’s something else. That’s a good football team, truly. Trevor over there is one of the best in the league at this, respect to him.
But I know who I am. I been knowing.
(Denzel Boston crosses behind him carrying a helmet.)
Boss. Boss! Nine-thirty. Don’t play with me, bro, I’m not calling you twice.
(Boston says something inaudible. Sanders turns back to the group.)
My fault. What was the question?
You’ve got a rookie centre and a rookie right tackle in front of you Sunday.
Park be in my hip pocket at every walkthrough. Every one. Asking me about the mike point, asking me what I’m seeing, asking me before I even get lined up. He is not gonna be the problem.
And Max, man. Max don’t say nothing to nobody and then he pancakes somebody and still don’t say nothing. I like that about him.
What’s it been like having DeAndre Hopkins in your receiver room?
Legendary. Truly, that’s a legendary dude.
First week of camp I asked him something about leverage on a slant, one question, and he talked to me for like forty-five minutes. Still be texting me routes at eleven at night. Like route concepts. At night.
Did your dad call?
He called. Said congratulations, then asked me did I call my mom yet. I hadn’t.
He don’t got no notes for Coach, neither. He told me that himself back in July. He said do what Coach tells you and don’t make it about nothing else.
A lot of people around the league still don’t think you should be starting.
And?
(Pause.)
Nah, I’m playing. Look, it’s been like that since Colorado, since the draft, all of it. It don’t move me no more. I’m proving me right. Same as I been doing.
Y’all can write what y’all write. I be enjoying it half the time.
People said in the spring the coach wasn’t a real coach. You’ve been asked about that before and you’ve defended him. Is that still where you are?
I ain’t speaking on Jerry. Jerry my guy, that’s my guy, we good.
But nah. Come sit in a Wednesday meeting one time. One time. He gets up there in front of thirty grown men and tells them what he wants and why he wants it, and then Sunday it happen how he said it was gonna happen. The old heads listen to him. Hop listens to him. I never had that. I’m twenty-four and I ain’t never had that one time.
So, y’all can keep it going if you want.
Has anything changed in the offense this week?
Nah. Same install we had in August. They put two things in off the same rules, so it’s not new, it’s just more of it. That’s how he teaches it, it’s all one language, so you learn it one time and then it’s just a different formation.
I’m gonna go through it again tonight anyway.
First Week 1 start of your career. You sleeping alright?
I slept.
(Pause.)
I mean, yeah. I sleep.
Last one — it’s supposed to be ninety-five degrees down there.
Yeah. We practiced at one o’clock all week for it. Which, you know. It’s hot at one o’clock here too.
(A team communications staffer says two more. Sanders shakes his head, picks up a shoe.)
Nah, I’m good. I gotta lift. Appreciate y’all.
Sanders spoke for nine minutes and left before the last two questions. Delpit, at the next locker over, was asked about him and said Sanders has been first into the quarterback meeting every morning since July. Jacksonville opened at 9.5 on Monday and has not moved.
