Sanders, Watson each get plenty of snaps with 1st team during Browns minicamp practice

BEREA, Ohio (AP) — It took six questions before coach Todd Monken was asked something he will have to answer plenty of times over the next four-plus months.

In this case, it was why Shedeur Sanders took the opening snaps with the first team during the Cleveland Browns’ first voluntary minicamp practice on Tuesday with Monken in charge.

The 10 NFL teams with new coaches are permitted to hold an additional voluntary minicamp this week before the draft starts on Thursday night.

“He was first man up. I knew it was coming. Didn’t know who was going to ask it, but I knew it was coming,” Monken said about the quarterback question.

Sanders and Deshaun Watson are expected to compete for the starting spot throughout offseason workouts and training camp. Watson, who missed last season after tearing his Achilles tendon twice, took first-team reps during three of the five team periods.

Monken said quarterback coach Mike Bajakian came up with Tuesday’s quarterback rotation.

“The way it was going to turn out, Shedeur was going to get more reps. Some of it in pass (skeleton drills), some of it in team,” Monken said. “A couple of the team periods were slowed-down ACT, more run than they were throw. So it was set up in a way for us to get a look at all of them. The plan was to have Shedeur have a few more reps, but to let Deshaun and Shedeur both have reps with the ones.”

Monken also noted that the rotations will change over the next two days of the minicamp as well as throughout the organized team practices in May and June.

Sanders has spent the offseason in Cleveland working out. The much-hyped fifth-round pick started the final seven games last season, going 3-4 with seven touchdowns and 10 interceptions.

“Well, this is the most important thing I have to do in my life. I have a house here. I’m comfortable, and I wanted to take everything to the next level within myself,” Sanders said. “I know with some things that I wanted to improve, and I took a lot of time to self-reflect and just do a lot of things just from a different perspective, honestly. And I think I covered a lot of ground with that.”

Sanders didn’t get much into the new playbook, other than to say it lets him play fast. He was more descriptive about his early impressions of Monken and the coaching staff.

“Coach Monken is great, and all the other coaches on the staff are extremely great. You can understand, and they embrace you just as a person, then they push you every day in a meeting room and on the field, in the weight room, it’s a new vibe, it’s a new energy,” Sanders said.

Watson — who hasn’t played in a game since Week 7 of the 2024 season — has gone 9-10 as Cleveland’s starter with 19 touchdowns, 12 interceptions and an 80.7 passer rating.

Despite having only two weeks with the new playbook, Monken thought Watson, Sanders and Dillon Gabriel were in command during practice.

“I never felt at one time like they were lost. To me, that’s the start of it. The start of it is how we function, how they lead. Is there a belief system in who has the ball in their hands every play?” Monken said.

Gabriel started six games, going 1-5 with seven touchdowns and two interceptions. He is a long shot for the starting job, but isn’t focusing on it.

“I think I’m just running my own race and focus on what I can control, and that’s mastering my reps and doing it at a high level,” he said.

Reigning AP NFL Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett, wide receiver Jerry Jeudy, and cornerback Denzel Ward were not at Tuesday’s practice. They do not have to be with the team until the mandatory minicamp in early June.

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Cleveland Browns quarterback Dillon Gabriel walks off the field after an NFL football practice, Tuesday, April 21, 2026, in Berea, Ohio. (AP Photo/David Dermer)

Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson throws a pass during NFL football practice, Tuesday, April 21, 2026, in Berea, Ohio. (AP Photo/David Dermer)

Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders walks off the field after an NFL football practice, Tuesday, April 21, 2026, in Berea, Ohio. (AP Photo/David Dermer)

Cleveland Browns head coach Todd Monken watches a play during NFL football practice, Tuesday, April 21, 2026, in Berea, Ohio. (AP Photo/David Dermer)

Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders collects the snap during NFL football practice, Tuesday, April 21, 2026, in Berea, Ohio. (AP Photo/David Dermer)

A judge on Tuesday delayed the criminal sentencing of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma in order to allow victims to attend the court proceeding in person.

U.S. District Judge Madeline Cox Arleo originally planned to hand down the sentence Tuesday during a court hearing conducted only by videoconferencing. But she said she changed her mind after seeing some victims of the opioid crisis protesting outside her courthouse in Newark, New Jersey. She said they should be allowed to attend in person, too, and moved the hearing to next Tuesday.

When it happens, Arleo is expected to order the company to forfeit $225 million to the Justice Department, clearing the way for the company to finalize a settlement of nearly all of the thousands of lawsuits it faces over its role in the opioid crisis.

The penalty was agreed to in a 2020 pact to resolve federal civil and criminal probes it was facing. If the judge signs off, other penalties will not be collected in return for Purdue settling the other lawsuits.

After years of legal twists and turns, the settlement was approved by another judge last year and Purdue said it could still be effective May 1 if the sentence is given on the scheduled date. The settlement requires members of the Sackler family who own the company to pay up to $7 billion to state, local and Native American tribal governments, some individual victims and others.

Purdue pleaded guilty to three federal criminal charges in November 2020.

The Stamford, Connecticut-based company admitted that it did not have an effective program to keep its powerful prescription painkillers from being diverted to the black market, even though it told the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration that it did.

It also admitted that it paid doctors through a speakers program to prescribe the drugs and paid an electronic medical records company to send doctors information on patients that encouraged more opioid prescriptions.

Although Purdue produced only a fraction of the opioid pills that flooded the market in the 2000s, advocates have long seen aggressive sales of OxyContin as one of the touchstones of the crisis. At a 1996 event to rally Purdue’s sales force, Richard Sackler, then a top Purdue executive and later president of the company, called for a “blizzard of prescriptions.”

While Purdue is expected to pay $225 million, the government agreed in the plea deal not to collect $5.3 billion in criminal forfeitures and fines and $2.8 billion in civil liabilities. Instead, portions of that money are considered part of the broader settlement — and the federal government will receive a small slice of that.

The broader settlement calls for members of the Sackler family who own the company to contribute up to $7 billion over 15 years. Most of the money is to go to government entities to use to fight the opioid crisis.

It's among the largest in a series of settlements by drugmakers, wholesalers and pharmacies in recent years — and the only major one that includes payments for some individual victims or their survivors.

Together, the settlements are worth more than $50 billion, and most of the money is to be used to address the overdose epidemic.

Under the Purdue deal, members of the Sackler family would be shielded from lawsuits over opioids from those who agree to the payments.

Purdue itself would cease to exist and be replaced by a new company, Knoa Pharma, which would operate for the public benefit and have a board appointed by the states.

The reorganization is considered one of the most complicated ever. By the end of last year, Purdue had paid law firms and other professionals working on all sides of the case more than $1 billion, according to a court filing.

Members of the Sackler family have long been cast as villains in the opioid crisis, seeking to increase profits even as it became clear people were becoming addicted to OxyContin and overdosing.

But no members of the family were charged.

Family members received $10.7 billion in payments from Purdue from 2008 to 2018 -- with nearly half of it used to pay taxes on behalf of Purdue. They have not been paid by the company since 2018 — and the last of the family members left Purdue's board in 2019.

Under the settlement, they would not object if their names are removed from museums and other institutions they've supported — something that's already happening.

More than 54,000 people with personal injury claims against Purdue voted to accept the settlement, and 218 voted against it.

Still, some victims and their family members have been pushing back for years, asserting that the settlement and the guilty plea stop short of justice for victims of a crisis that has been linked to 900,000 deaths in the U.S. since 1999.

The sentencing will give them another chance to make that case.

Outside the courthouse Tuesday, Stacy Schwab said she was dependent on OxyContin 20 years ago, that opioids killed one family member, and that another is struggling with addiction and insurance doesn't cover the treatment she needs. That makes Schwab furious at Sackler family members.

“My family just doesn’t have the money to pay for private treatment for her, while they’re sitting on billions of dollars,” Schwab said.

Like others, she said it's good that the judge is giving victims a chance to be heard.

Meanwhile Tuesday, a lawyer filed a request that the federal government’s expected $225 million be used for victims' medical care.

Associated Press reporters Alanna Durkin Richer and Emily Wang contributed to this article.

Stacy Schwab, center, and others react after hearing that a hearing for for Purdue Pharma had been rescheduled while relying outside a courthouse in Newark, N.J., Tuesday, April 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

People hold a sign with the names of victims of the opioid crisis while rallying outside of a courthouse in Newark, N.J., Tuesday, April 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Tanny Austin cries while looking at tombstones with the names of victims of the opioid crisis, including her son Sean Austin, during a rally outside of a courthouse in Newark, N.J., Tuesday, April 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

People rally outside a courthouse while a hearing for Purdue Pharma takes place inside in Newark, N.J., Tuesday, April 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

FILE - Cheryl Juaire holds photos of her sons, both of whom died from overdoses, Sean Merrill, left, and Corey Merrill, after making a statement during a hearing in New York on March 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

FILE - A sign with some names of the Sackler family is displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Jan. 17, 2019, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

FILE - Pills spill in an arrangement photo of prescription Oxycodone in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

FILE - Protesters who have lost love ones to the opioid crisis protest outside a courthouse in Boston, Aug. 2, 2019, where a judge heard arguments in a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)