Ex-NFL star praises Shedeur Sanders for ‘mental toughness’ to bounce back from poor debut to beat Raiders

Shedeur Sanders will receive his second career NFL start later this week when the Cleveland Browns take on the San Francisco 49ers in Week 13.

Sanders helped the Browns to a 24-10 victory over the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday. Though he didn’t dazzle in his first start, Sanders did enough to get the win and threw his first touchdown pass in the process.

Trent Green, a Super Bowl champion and two-time Pro Bowler in his NFL career, touted Sanders’ efforts against the Raiders after he only made four completions when he came in for an injured Dillon Gabriel in Week 11 against the Baltimore Ravens.

“The fact that he was able to come back off of that performance he had last week where he was 4-of-16, it was a bad game,” Green told Fox News Digital. “But you don’t get a lot of reps. You’re a young quarterback, you get thrown into a situation like that. I love the way that he responded.

“You have to have mental toughness to be able to do that. You’re in a tough environment. You’re trying to get a win. There’s a lot of pressure that comes from the name on the back of your jersey, and the fact that there’s so much attention around him as a player, he was able to handle all that and got the win. I’m looking forward to talking to him this week, study more tape on him and learn more about him. And he’s got a San Francisco team that’s coming in there.”

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Green spoke to Fox News Digital days before he’s set to help launch Caesars Sportsbooks in Missouri.

Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski stressed the need for continued improvement when he spoke to reporters on Monday.

“First start for any young quarterback, you’re always going to make sure the operation is how you want it, and I thought by and large was good,” Stefanski said. “There’s things that we can clean up and obviously that goes on all of us.

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“Are there things that he can do better? Absolutely. We’ve already talked about that with him. He has the mentality that he will make the adjustments to the speed of the game, make the adjustments to what people are giving us, to make those improvements.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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