Dillon Gabriel's pro career is off to rough start with struggles, injury

Dillon Gabriel's introduction to the NFL has been a crash course in learning a complex system while facing bigger, faster competition. The bumps, bruises and crumpled metal were to be expected.The rookie has experienced his share of struggles through the first two weeks of training camp as he competes for the Browns' starting quarterback job."Well, it's life," Gabriel, a third-round pick out of Oregon, said Monday. "I think for many it's why you put yourself out there as a competitor. Of course, you want certain results, but sometimes it doesn't always go your way. And there's a lot of things that collectively we can help one another out and be better in certain aspects. And it starts with me as the quarterback who touches the ball every single play, but it's the ultimate team sport and that's why you love competing in it and I love playing the game."The latest speedbump for Gabriel is a tight hamstring that limited his repetitions Monday. He got a series in seven-on-seven drills and another in 11-on-11s, but his status for the joint practice Wednesday against the Carolina Panthers in Charlotte and the preseason opener Friday is in question.Early indications are he won't play in the game, a league source confirmed to The Chronicle-Telegram on Tuesday. The Browns signed Tyler Huntley and plan to have him ready to play Friday night if Gabriel doesn't play. Rookie fifth-round pick Shedeur Sanders is expected to get the start and the bulk of the playing time.Any missed snaps for Gabriel are costly for him and the team. He seems like a distant third on the depth chart behind veterans Joe Flacco and Kenny Pickett, but the organization also needs to find out if he can open the season as the No. 2.If the answer is yes, the Browns could try to trade Flacco or Pickett — whoever doesn't win the starting job. If Gabriel isn't ready, the Browns will likely keep Flacco, Pickett, Gabriel and Sanders on the 53-man regular-season roster.The offseason and training camp plans were designed to put Gabriel to the test. He's consistently gotten limited reps with the first-team offense — Sanders hasn't gotten any — and more overall than Flacco, who's 40 years old and doesn't need as much work.The reviews have been more negative than positive, especially lately. Gabriel has struggled with accuracy, particularly in the red zone."I go back to just every single day is individual of its own, and I think you want to collectively build days," he said. "But within that you want to be proud of certain reps, but you want to be proud of how there's opportunity to grow and correcting maybe mistakes once to the next time and continue to answer the bell that way."So for me it's doing that and stacking it up. But the more reps, the more tries you get at it, the more confidence you build, and the ability to showcase what you can do slowly by just operating within the offense."From the number of reps to the size of the playbook, coach Kevin Stefanski, coordinator Tommy Rees and quarterbacks coach Bill Musgrave have been loading up his plate."Study habits for me are huge," Gabriel said. "You want to approach it a certain way, and I don't want to use this quote again, but Coach always talks about an elephant, eating it one bite at a time. And for me, you got to do it that way. You got to break it down, make it easy to learn and memorize, but then also when you're out there it's got to be able to translate. So whenever you can translate the classroom to the field, that's been huge for me."And that's whether it's walkthroughs, going through the cadence and calls, getting used to that, but then also the physical aspect of connecting with receivers, being able to see an operation presnap, post-snap, that's all things that you want to be extremely comfortable in so that you can just go out and play.At 24 years old and a veteran of six years in college across three schools, Gabriel should be well-equipped to handle the load, as well as the struggles."I don't want to make it about down times, but I think it's more so just with all my experience, you've been through a lot of situations and have seen a lot," he said. "It doesn't mean there won't be new situations that are unique to that time and certain situation, but you just appreciate 'em all and you know that through all that growth is going to come an all-time high because there's times to learn, there's times to grow and the more you put yourself out there in that way, the faster you can get there."At 5-foot-11, 205 pounds, Gabriel's lack of size looms large. Finding throwing lanes is critical and he needs to be on point in every facet. That hasn't been the case, particularly his accuracy.He showed resilience by rebounding within the practice after a couple of awful starts. After missing a number of short throws, he was able to connect on intermediate routes."All these rookies, and certainly quarterbacks, there's plays that are set up for you and you let it rip and it's there," Stefanski said. "There's times that things aren't there. And I think the big thing is learning from every single one of those reps. Like I can think of certain reps where you got to move in the pocket and you got to run out of the pocket. You got to go scramble and get as much as we can get and get down and protect yourself. That's real football."So we're trying as hard as we can to mimic that in these settings and know that you're going to have some plays that you want back, but the bottom line is you have to learn from those plays. I think he's doing that."Gabriel said he was prepared for the moment and looking forward to playing Friday but will likely have to concentrate his energy on whatever reps he gets in the joint practice, which will be a new experience for him.He has plenty of past success to reflect on during the tough times. He started more games (63) than any other quarterback in FBS history, set the FBS record with 189 total touchdowns (155 passing, 33 rushing, one receiving) and ranks No. 2 in passing yards (18,722).He spent his final year at Oregon and sees a lot of similarities with Stefanski's system."Schematically there's a lot of things that I have done before in the past, so I could conceptualize it a lot easier in that way," he said. "But I think in just my abilities, I've done it in this type of scheme. It's just now it's the next level. There's a lot more to do and you have to consistently do it. I always say it's a results-based business, so what have you done for me lately? And that's what I look forward to."The post Dillon Gabriel's pro career is off to rough start with struggles, injury first appeared on BrownsZone with Scott Petrak.