Shedeur Sanders becomes first Browns QB to win first career start since 1995

The Cleveland Browns picked up their third victory of the season in Sunday’s game against the Las Vegas Raiders as Shedeur Sanders delivered a 24-10 victory in the rookie’s first career start. 

Sanders became the first Browns quarterback since 1995 to win his first start. Previously, Browns quarterbacks went 0-17 in their first starts dating back to 1999. Cleveland’s last quarterback to win his first career start was Eric Zeier, who was coached by Bill Belichick. He defeated the Cincinnati Bengals in overtime, 29-26. The franchise moved to Baltimore the next year. 

Sanders completed 11 of 20 passes for 209 yards, one touchdown and one interception. It was an offensive rookie showcase in a way, as Quinshon Judkins rushed for 47 yards and two touchdowns, while Dylan Sampson caught Sanders’ lone touchdown — a 66-yard catch-and-run. 

The reason the Browns won this game was because of their defensive effort, as Jim Schwartz’s unit held the Raiders to 268 total yards, one touchdown and sacked Geno Smith a whopping 10 times. Myles Garrett recorded three total sacks, meaning he’s just now five sacks away from the all-time record with six games left to play. 

Let’s take a look back at Sanders’ first NFL start:

Confidence before the game

Right before kickoff CBS Sports’ Tiffany Blackmon caught up with Sanders, and asked him what this opportunity feels like.

“Feels good,” Sanders said. “We cool, calm, collected. Like, this ain’t nothing to us.” 

When Blackmon asked Sanders what he hopes to show the NFL world today, he didn’t mince his words:

“I’m who they been lookin’ for,” Sanders said.

The first half

The Browns took a 14-3 halftime lead in large part due to their defense, which sacked Smith five times. In all, Sanders completed 7 of 11 passes for 127 yards and one interception in the first two quarters.

The Browns jumped out to a 7-0 lead after an impressive, 44-yard punt return from Gage Larvadain. Judkins took advantage of the short field, and punched in an 8-yard touchdown from the wildcat formation.

Late in the first quarter, Sanders connected with fellow rookie Isaiah Bond on a 53-yard pass to set the Browns up with a first-and-goal from the two-yard line. 

Garrett was certainly impressed with the throw.

As was Sanders’ father!

From there, Kevin Stefanski again called a play from the wildcat formation, and Judkins scored his second touchdown of the game to put Cleveland up 14-0.

Sanders then made his first major mistake, throwing an interception to Charles Snowden, who was in zone coverage, while attempting to connect with Jerry Jeudy. However, the Browns defense stood tall and held the Raiders to a 41-yard field goal. 

One thing we noticed from the Browns’ offensive game plan this week with Sanders at quarterback is to roll him out of the pocket. The rookie has a tendency to drift in the pocket and hold onto the ball too long, so this was a point of emphasis from Stefanski.

Late in the second quarter, Sanders rolled right and hit Jeudy deep for a massive gain. However, the wideout didn’t know where he was on the field, was hit by Jeremy Chinn from behind and fumbled the ball. 

The second half

The Browns punted four times in the second half and put together two scoring drives. In the fourth quarter, Sanders threw his first career touchdown — a swing pass to Sampson, who scurried 66 yards to virtually put the game away. 

It wasn’t the most perfect game in the world, but Sanders only made one major miscue in the form of his interception early in the second quarter. He managed the game, and allowed the defense to take over. Another noteworthy statistic from this game was that Sanders was only sacked once. As a prospect, his tendency to drift backwards in the pocket and set himself up for sacks was worrisome, but we didn’t see too much of that on Sunday. 

Truth be told, despite the win, Sanders likely didn’t do enough to steal the job away from Dillon Gabriel, who was selected by Cleveland above Sanders in this past draft. When Stefanski was asked if Sanders would start next week against the San Francisco 49ers, he said he wasn’t “going to get into that.”

“Proud of him, and proud of this offense and there are a ton of things to learn from, but I’m just going to worry about today,” Stefanski said. 

Stefanski also praised Sanders for his work ethic and desire to get better. 

As for the Browns’ quarterback situation, Gabriel is currently in the concussion protocol, and all players recover from head injuries differently. If Gabriel clears protocol this week, it could set the Browns up with an interesting decision.