Cleveland Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski is still reluctant to start Shedeur Sanders, even though he had teased doing so after the bye week during a livestream. Such reticence, however, can be attributed to a back injury, which Deion Sanders Jr. confirmed his brother was struggling with before the Week 8 game at the New England Patriots in a video on Thursday:

“His back was actually getting checked out the whole week last week. It was actually a problem.”

That development came amidst concerns about the nature and timing of the announcement that Sanders had an injury. It came on Saturday, something that 92.3 The Fan’s Anthony Lima took umbrage at given the quarterback’s historical media savviness:

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Stefanski, meanwhile, is not thinking about a quarterback change, at least in the short term. And while there has been much outrage at the continued stalling, one person who believes otherwise is ESPN analyst Matt Miller. In an interview with EssentiallySports’ Andrew Whitelaw, he said:

”I believe that if (Shedeur) was worthy of starting, Kevin Stefanski would start him. …So, until we have any evidence that Sanders should be playing over Gabriel, I think you have to trust the guys who are there every day doing the work.”

Kevin Stefanski might giveup play-calling duties amidst Browns’ struggles

The quarterback situation may not be the only aspect where Kevin Stefanski makes a change, however. There is also the question of whether he can still competently call plays.

In a media conference on Monday, he said about the possibility of surrendering those duties to offensive coordinator Tommy Rees for the Week 10 game at the New York Jets, just as he had done last season with Ken Dorsey:

“I need to spend time on all those things, and I think it’s by position we have to be better and we have to put our players in better spots, if you will. So, we’ll look at all of it this week and make a decision coming out of the bye.”

And for Cleveland.com’s Mary Kay Cabot, this may be the change that the Browns need to end their offensive slump:

“There’s just not much else that can be done right now to fix it, unless the Browns are willing to add a good, veteran receiver and find an experienced, veteran quarterback who might fare better than rookie Dillon Gabriel.”

Kickoff for the aforementioned game is at 1 pm ET on CBS.