Browns Fight Back Late But Cannot Overcome Sloppy Second Half in 31-29 Loss to Titans: Game Notes
The inconsistency remains the most consistent feature of the 2025 Browns.
The Browns entered Week 14 without much hope of keeping themselves from elimination, but they had a chance to get a much-needed win and continue to step forward with winning culture. The Titans entered as the NFL’s lone one-win team and without much expectation to win Cleveland, a place the Browns defense normally shows up well, and the idea of chasing draft positioning. It was a billing of two young quarterbacks fighting for their place in the league with Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders. It was the Titans who displayed a more consistent brand of winning football and ultimately got the win.
Ward’s Titans improved to 2-11 following the 31-29 victory over Sanders’ 3-10 Browns thanks to Ward being bolstered by some help from running back Tony Pollard, who ran for 161 yards and two touchdowns on 25 carries. Ward finished with 117 yards, two touchdowns and an interception on 14-of-28 passing for the first multi-touchdown pass outing of his young career. Sanders produced a career-best performance: 364 yards passing, three touchdowns and an interception on 23-of-42 passing in addition to a team-high 29 yards rushing and touchdown on three carries.
Sanders joined the Bengals‘ Joe Burrow as the only rookie quarterbacks in the Super Bowl era (since 1966) with over 350 yards passing, three passing touchdowns and a rushing touchdown in the same game, per NFL Media. He’s also the first Browns quarterback to pull off those stats.
At 3-10 the Browns have been officially eliminated from the playoffs and now see their chances for a Top-3 pick drastically improved. They went from a very slim chance to now 14% odds to land the top pick in the draft. It is about all we have to watch closely throughout the remaining four games. Plus the league’s best defensive end chasing history.
Here are your Week 14 Game Notes.
The offense had some moments on the day and went for 412 yards but they had next to zero balance. The running backs only rushed for 30 yards on 16 carries and it left the burden on Sanders and the pass catchers to make the offense move. This offense simply cannot live this way into the future. Too many empty plays like this one where they fail to have an answer inside the read or RPO game for the unblocked EDGE. It feels disjointed too often.
The choice to take Sanders off the field for the two-point conversion will be heavily debated. I don’t think they would have made that choice without feeling like they had a play dialed up that would work. Stefanski owned it, as he should, but the whole group was in on the plan — no doubt about it. Sanders will get more of those opportunities in the coming games, I am sure about that. It will be over-discussed and dissected in the coming days, bank on that.
Sanders had some real moments. Big throws that will sure look good on All-22 and made some nice decisions and plays within the pocket. He protected the ball well within structure and got to many of the answers the scheme provided him from first watch. He also did well extending a few selected times to make plays come together. Accuracy was relatively strong as well.
There were still those instances where he drifted around too deep in the pocket and didn’t process the quick decisions that needed to be made or when to scrap a play. He ate a screen pass intentional grounding, took a few sacks, and then also flashed his worst issue drifting, trying to extend, and then exposing the ball to the defense in the deep middle of the field. He has been better, but these leave plenty of room for improvement.
Quinshon Judkins caught some yards in the screen game taking one for 58 yards, which was well-timed and executed, but other than that it was a quiet day. I do think he is struggling with a poor run gameplan and execution from his offensive line, but the wildcat work was sloppy on the day and the two-point play was also poorly executed. Not one of his better games overall.
Harold Fannin Jr. continues to be the Browns best pass threat period. He is so consistent making plays after the catch it feels like he keeps growing in other phases as well. The jump ball in the left corner of the endzone was fantastic. He is young and developing and has a chance to be one of the NFL’s better tight ends in the coming years. The goal line catch from David Njoku was also nice to see as well, even though he hurt his knee on the play.
The offensive line was makeshift coming into the game and then they lost Ethan Pocic to an apparent achilles injury during the game. They will start Teven Jenkins and Luke Wypler the rest of the year. It will be a nice audition for the duo. The tackle play was rough on the day for what talent they faced on the opposition side — especially from KT Leveston.
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