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The Cleveland Browns will stick with Dillon Gabriel as their starter this week against the Baltimore Ravens, but skepticism is mounting about his long-term viability as an NFL quarterback after a 1-4 opening stretch to his career.<\/p>\n
Gabriel took over for Joe Flacco in Week 5. He\u2019s done little to show that he can produce at the NFL level. Gabriel has rarely looked downfield, and when he has, his passes have lacked the needed accuracy and zip to be effective. His\u00a05.0 yards per attempt\u00a0is the lowest in the NFL. In all, Gabriel has passed for 869 yards, five touchdowns and two interceptions in five starts.<\/p>\n
Zac Jackson of The Athletic believes that Gabriel is \u201covermatched\u201d in the NFL and has little faith he can even be a viable developmental option for the Browns.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not a developmental quarterback. He\u2019s a quarterback who has hit a wall. You have a picture painted of who Dillon Gabriel is. He has done nothing but go backwards since that first game,\u201d\u00a0Jackson said on Thursday on The Ultimate Cleveland Sports Show. \u201cHe\u2019s overmatched \u2014 the numbers say that, the eye test says it. The reality is, he always was when they rushed him out there. They haven\u2019t done him any favors. They aren\u2019t doing him any favors with this wide receiver corps. But it\u2019s very clear \u2014 he is not going to be an NFL quarterback. And that has been the case since the spring.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Browns spent a third-round pick on Gabriel with hopes he could finally solve their long-standing quarterback problem. But drafting Shedeur Sanders two rounds later did him no favors, adding another layer of pressure for the rookie.<\/p>\n
With Gabriel struggling, calls have grown for Sanders to get his shot under center. But head coach Kevin Stefanski has avoided the topic,\u00a0declining to answer questions\u00a0about when Sanders could see the field.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s fair to speculate. We\u2019re committed to getting better as an offense,\u201d Stefanski said. \u201cDillon is certainly committing to improving every which way he can. And all the while, all of our players, young players, are developing and working so hard behind the scenes to make sure that they\u2019re getting better on a daily basis.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are problems with the Browns\u2019 offense beyond Gabriel. But the rookie will only have so many more shots with the team racking up losses.<\/p>\n
As Jackson noted, Gabriel hasn\u2019t shown meaningful growth through five starts. Still, the Browns\u2019 rookie quarterback insisted he\u2019s focused on steady development rather than overnight results.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think growth is ever linear, and there\u2019s regression and there\u2019s progression,\u201d Gabriel said on Thursday. \u201cSo there\u2019s things that get better and things we\u2019ve got to continue to work on, but I want to continue to get better. And that\u2019s what you strive for every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gabriel\u2019s next test will come against the Ravens on Sunday, who are playing solid football after a rough start to the year. Baltimore pounded the Browns 41-17 in Week 2.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re talented at all levels, play really good as a unit, communicate really effectively,\u201d Gabriel said. \u201cWe have our hands full.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cleveland is a 12.5-point underdog for the matchup,\u00a0per ESPN BET.<\/p>\n
The Pittsburgh Penguins have had many a pleasant surprise over their first 17 games. They\u2019ve gotten a lot of life out of mid-level free agent signings like Justin Brazeau, Anthony Mantha and Parker Wotherspoon. Arturs Silovs has looked the part of an NHL goalie. Tristan Jarry and even Ryan Graves have started upon redemption journeys, no matter how modest or long-lasting they might be. Evgeni Malkin has seemingly turned back the hands of time. Erik Karlsson is playing like he has something to prove. Sidney Crosby is, well, you can\u2019t be too surprised that he\u2019s still the best player on the ice most nights but at 38 it\u2019s still something to see.<\/p>\n
The progression of Ben Kindel, however, is arguably their finest and most pleasant surprise of all so far. No one had him even close to the NHL radar in 2025-26 (though, hey, at least we were able to\u00a0raise the possibility of the unexpected)<\/p>\n
Those seven other forwards who fit in the category are Zach Benson, Cole Sillinger, Ryan O\u2019Reilly, Patrice Bergeron, Dustin Brown, Justin Williams and Sykora. Of those, only the first two have had their rookie seasons in the last 15 years.<\/p>\n
Not only is Kindel making it, he\u2019s excelling. It\u2019s early, small sample, blah blah but Kindel has stepped right in and looked the part of a player who can drive his own line and now has stepped up to the first line to play on the wing. Kindel\u2019s two-way play was touted coming out of the WHL just as much as his ability to produce points and that has been the case thus far in his first 15 NHL games.<\/p>\n
Of the others, here are some stat lines for their rookie years:<\/p>\n
These players, of course, were far from finished products even though it is rare to even show enough to stick in the NHL from this age without being a top-10 draft pick. One commonality amongst these players seems to be a defensive conscious, Beregron won six Selke trophies in his career, O\u2019Reilly has won the award once. Brown and Sykora picked up Selke votes in their careers and were known as reliable players off the puck, as was Williams. It wouldn\u2019t be a surprise if Kindel joins them to at least find his name on Selke ballots in the future if he eventually grows into a penalty killing center as his career blossoms. That makes sense on the surface level, if a young player is going to make it right off the bat they have to instantly create some trust away from the puck and demonstrate a good compete and detail level to their game beyond their young age.<\/p>\n
As the stats above show, there\u2019s a lot more offensive upside for the players to find. Most of the rookies ended up in the 25-30ish point range as draft+1 NHLers and almost all of them eventually found their game grow into being 60+ players (including Benson, who got to 60 in his second season). That hasn\u2019t always been the case \u2014 Sillinger has no more than 33 points over his four NHL seasons and may never reach the levels that just about everyone else did but the track record there is fairly strong and shows a clear path about a promising future is ahead for young Kindel.<\/p>\n
Of course, one doesn\u2019t need this article to realize all of that, the eye test is showing in spades the impressiveness in Kindel\u2019s game. It was only a month ago when the Pens\u2019 coaches\u00a0had a plan\u00a0to cycle Kindel out as a healthy scratch at times to keep him from getting overloaded. Plans can change, Kindel has played the last eight games in a row and more all the time (scoring five points and averaging 16:30 per game while playing more minutes each game in the last four games than he played in all of his first 11). The scratches have gone away because there hasn\u2019t been a need lately to give him time off.<\/p>\n
Kindel has been able to handle what the Pens have asked, whether that\u2019s been centering his own line or now moving up to play wing with Crosby. For someone drafted outside of the top-10 and won\u2019t turn 19 until after the regular season ends that could be the biggest and best surprise of them all this season in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Cleveland Browns will stick with Dillon Gabriel as their starter this week against the Baltimore Ravens, but skepticism is mounting about his long-term viability as an NFL quarterback after a 1-4…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t