The day in Cleveland started with a delay and the Browns ended with a similar delay in play quality. Similar to last week in Chicago, the Browns tied the game early on an 8-yard touchdown from Shedeur Sanders to Luke Floriea. After that, the offense couldn’t get any consistent movement throughout the rest of the day and the second half defense folded. For a team needing to string together some success for confidence sake, the Browns didn’t give themselves or their fans many positive vibes in their 31-7 loss at Huntington Bank Field.
It is worth noting the Browns didn’t field many of their starters whatsoever, but that doesn’t stop us from analysis. Most of which still is focused on the quarterback battle given the remaining uncertainty. Shedeur Sanders was slated to start and play through the first half, with Deshaun Watson taking over to open the third quarter and Dillon Gabriel closing things out — the reverse of the rotation from the Bears opener. Sanders had some nice moments in the early portions of the game before a late second quarter interception stalled a drive in Bills territory and effectively closed out his day. He went 9-11 on the day for 74 yards including one touchdown and one interception. With a chance to take another real step at closing out the quarterback competition, Watson struggled. He went just 5-12 for 35 yards and an interception on the day. His post-game presser was a man defeated. Blaming fans for booing his performance and calling it less about performance and more about it being personal. He might’ve just cut his own legs out front underneath him in this battle right at the finish line. Who knows what Todd Monken will do now following the weekend where he wanted to name a starter.
We always watch preseason with blinders on understanding the obvious restrictions in the real takeaways, but the Browns are not doing much to make the fanbase feel better about where the 2026 season is headed. We have to hope this is the type of thing a newly coached team can go through and the first team will be able to handle the season better than we have seen through two preseason weeks.
Here are your Preseason Week 2 Game Notes.
Shedeur Sanders handled himself well for the day and the stat lines will make you feel better about his chances of winning the job than before the day started. He operated with a nice calm in the pocket and hit a few nice throws on the day. His first big completion was the touchdown to Floriea where he sorted through first layer coverage to pin down Floriea in the back of the end zone.
His best throw of the day was working left to right and finding Floriea on a deep over in the third window of the route — speaking to how clean the protection was for the young quarterback. Nice read and a nice delivery between layers.
The interception was on a square-in that Sanders left behind Jermaine Terry. Sure, it could have been caught, but as I say on these the more difficult you make catches on non-wide receiver targets the more you open up variance in the outcome. And this is what can happen.
Again, though, Sanders had a strong day on most of his reps and operated things cleanly. He certainly helped his case especially given that he also didn’t get reps with the best of the unit down the offensive line’s starters and best weapons.
Not sure what to say about Deshaun Watson here. He didn’t seem like he wanted to be out there and just didn’t have clean decision-making or accuracy. He left a ball in double coverage that could’ve been a turnover in his first drive and it set the tone for his performance.
He was then intercepted late in the game on a very similar read and concept where he missed a deep over high to Gage Larvadain.
I have long thought this was a battle Watson was going to win by default but given today I think Sanders has as good a chance as any point in the process. He might have won the job. Which probably speaks to Watson’s day and how the fanbase continues to react to his performances. He was clearly very impacted in his post-game press conference where it sounds like a defeated man.