When the Cleveland Browns open training camp next week, the competition for the starting quarterback job will resume.For now, it’s Deshaun Watson, who missed all of last season while recovering from a twice-torn Achilles tendon, versus Shedeur Sanders, who started the final seven games of his rookie season. New coach Todd Monken said in the winter that he viewed it as an open competition that preferably would have been decided by now.There was no clear winner in the spring, which Monken has tried to spin as a positive. There’s a new scheme, a new staff, an upgraded receiving corps and a totally remade offensive line that eventually will be tasked with protecting and supporting whoever wins the job, and the Browns still have much to refine and clean up.Probably, the quarterback battle is actually Watson vs. Sanders vs. the team taking on a full-on quarterback search in early 2027. In June, the Browns traded two-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett to the Rams. Even before the Garrett trade, Browns general manager Andrew Berry said the 2026 Browns might end up being the league’s youngest team.Obviously, Monken wants to win. Berry wants to continue to acquire and develop young talent, and the team’s offensive skill positions have been bolstered in the last two drafts. The Browns think they have some keepers in running back Quinshon Judkins, tight end Harold Fannin Jr. and rookie wide receivers KC Concepcion and Denzel Boston.Sanders didn’t have a lot of help last December as the Cleveland offense limped to the finish. He had moments both good and bad in a rookie season that saw him go from fourth on the depth chart to making his NFL debut before he ever took a practice snap with the team’s starters. Watson is back because the Browns couldn’t afford the salary cap hit from moving on. Watson has started 19 games in four years, winning nine of those starts since the Browns traded three first-round picks to get him.Watson’s time in Cleveland has been a total failure and led to the Browns moving on from Garrett as part of an ongoing roster rebuild. Sanders was an audible, the second of two quarterbacks the team drafted in 2025 and a player viewed by the previous staff as a developmental, last-resort option.After one spring program, Monken insists that he likes what he has seen from both. And after a spring of essentially an even split in practice reps and opportunities, the two start training camp on July 29 on even ground.Not having a starter named “would be a negative if I didn’t think either one of them were capable of starting,” Monken said. “It would feel different if I didn’t feel like their progression (had) gotten to this point where I think they both can start and play winning football. I’m convinced of it. And I’d say it if I didn’t. I can’t decide now because I think both have earned the opportunity to continue to compete once we put the pads on.”Browns get flexibility and clarity after trading away Myles GarrettZac JacksonThe timelineIt’s fair to guess that the QB reps will be distributed evenly over the first four days of training camp, the mandated acclimation days. After a day off on Aug. 2, the Browns will be allowed to be in full pads starting Aug. 3 and are scheduled to hold practices on six consecutive days.If either Watson or Sanders is going to separate from the other — in performance and/or in share of the reps — that second week of full camp figures to be the first opportunity. The third week of camp has three practices on the schedule ahead of the Aug. 15 preseason opener in Chicago.The fourth week of camp features the Browns’ Aug. 20 joint practice with the Buffalo Bills, the final practice ahead of the Browns-Bills preseason game on Aug. 22. Assuming both Watson and Sanders stay healthy and neither clearly wins the competition early in August, that joint practice and the preseason game probably serve as something close to last call for Monken to make a decision.The day after the Buffalo preseason game, Aug. 23, is exactly three weeks ahead of the Sept. 13 season opener in Jacksonville. The Browns close the preseason at home versus New England on Aug. 27 and then have eight full practices on the tentative schedule ahead of the opener.Especially because the Browns have a completely new offensive line and will have at least a few new contributors in their skill position groups, expect the No. 1 offense and the projected starting quarterback to play at least a quarter and maybe a full half in the preseason finale.Shaking off the rustWatson is entering the final season of the fully guaranteed $230 million contract he signed with the Browns in 2022. The Browns still have around $80 million in salary-cap commitments to Watson after 2026, which means that if he is going to truly relaunch his NFL career, it’s likely to be somewhere else.But because Watson is under contract, he has to play when the preseason begins in order for Monken and the new staff to get a full evaluation. Watson’s last live snap was in October 2024. He returned to limited practice for three weeks last December before reverting to the physically unable to perform list, and though he was medically cleared for a full return by the start of the offseason program last spring, his snaps in the team’s April voluntary minicamp were his first semi-competitive snaps in more than 18 months.Even if Sanders immediately grabs the lead in the camp competition, Watson will need live reps in the team’s preseason games and joint practice against Buffalo — a setting in which he struggled mightily in the summers of 2023 and 2024.Probably, Monken will use the second week of camp to create multiple scrimmage scenarios that are as close to live-game action as possible. Quarterbacks are never open to live tackling in practice settings, but a team with a new offense and an ongoing quarterback competition needs as many chances in full-speed scenarios as possible, both for evaluation and developmental purposes.Watson’s best chance to win the job lies in his athleticism and ability to both extend and freelance plays. Both Monken and offensive coordinator Travis Switzer have said the Browns will have their quarterback in a scramble scenario more than in any scripted play, and though Monken is designing and implementing an offense for the Browns, he got the job based on the work he did with dynamic quarterback Lamar Jackson in Baltimore.Monken said repeatedly in the spring that he couldn’t fully evaluate the quarterbacks until they faced real pressure. And though there were times in the spring that Monken called run/pass option plays and even the occasional designed keeper for Watson, the coach has stressed that he believes Sanders can operate a similar offense.“I think Shedeur is being more decisive (as time goes on),” Monken said. “Now, it’s easy to say we’re not in pads, but it just feels like he’s making quicker decisions. The ball’s coming out of his hands, which he’s gonna have to do. Not that he doesn’t have playmaking ability, because he does, but his ability to process quicker and get the ball out of his hands and eliminate lost yardage plays is going to be huge for us to be able to stack plays and score.”Sizing it upBrowns first-year coach Todd Monken has said both Deshaun Watson and Shedeur Sanders deserve a chance to compete for the starting job. (Nick Cammett / Getty Images)In February, in March and again in June, Monken said the same things: that he’s here to win, that the best players will play regardless of tenure or salary and that the players generally settle competitions for playing time with their work before the coaches actually have to decide.Watson looked healthy in the spring and threw the deep ball better than Sanders did, but Watson also forced too many practice passes into traffic. Sanders was clearly a more confident player in the back half of the offseason program than he was early, and at times he showcased strong accuracy, which is probably his best trait at this point.History says both players will be needed. And that’s not to imply anything or to mock anyone, but the Browns have had nine different quarterbacks make starts over the last three seasons. Last year’s four-man camp competition took an immediate turn when Kenny Pickett, who had been first up in a lot of practice-drill lines, suffered a hamstring injury on the fourth day of camp and ended up being traded before he again completed a full practice.Cleveland did not seriously pursue a veteran quarterback in the offseason. Dillon Gabriel, a 2025 third-round pick, returns as the third man on the depth chart for now. Gabriel’s spring chances were few, though his best days of practice came late in the spring program. Gabriel started six games last season before suffering an injury and spending the rest of the season as a backup to Sanders.The Browns drafted Taylen Green in the sixth round as a developmental quarterback. It’s too early to know if Green will get many practice or preseason game opportunities; he got no competitive reps in spring practices that were open to reporters. Under normal circumstances, a rookie would certainly have preseason opportunities and practice days to get more than his usual work. But here, the focus is on first finding a winner and then sorting out the rest of the depth chart.“(I’ll play) whoever gives us the best chance to score, and I won’t know that till we play,” Monken said. “We don’t know this now in shorts and we may not know it until we play in the preseason games.“Ultimately, we take all the information in the offseason and then training camp and then the preseason games and practice, and then let it rip.”Soon, Cleveland Browns training camp quarterback competition version 5.0 will officially resume.