Even though they were the underdogs, there was a subtle air of confidence surrounding the Cleveland Browns as they headed into their match up against the San Francisco 49ers in Week 13. Brock Purdy had just thrown three interceptions against the Carolina Panthers, the Browns’ defense looked as dangerous as ever, and Shedeur Sanders was receiving the second start of his rookie year.
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Unfortunately, none of that seemed to matter, as the 49ers embarrassed the Browns to the tune of 26-8 in front of their hometown crowd. It’s their ninth loss of the season, but it’s also the latest incident in what has been a seemingly never-ending series of disappointments for Cleveland.
“We let the coaches down,” Sanders solemnly admitted during his post-game interview. The former Colorado Buffalo struggled mightily from the field, completing just 16 of his 25 pass attempts for 149 yards and one touchdown.
Despite those struggles, however, Cleveland’s head coach, Kevin Stefanski, has already announced that Sanders will be starting once more against the Tennessee Titans in Week 14. Given the amount of adversity that the 23 year old has faced since night one of the 2025 NFL Draft, it should come as no surprise to hear that Sanders is grateful for the opportunity.
However, rather than celebrate his individual victory, he’s choosing to remain focused on the larger task that’s at hand here.
“I’m thankful… I remember when I wasn’t playing. I’ll never forget that feeling. I try my best to not let that happen again, but we fell short today and we just can’t continue doing it. We can’t continue doing that at all. I know we let a lot of people down… But we’ll be ready to go next week.”
While that’s all fine and well on its own, there’s not many words that will likely comfort his head coach at this point in time. Stefanski, who was visibly displeased while speaking to the media, elected to look at the floor rather than the press as he read off the various instances in which his team failed to execute.
Given the fact that the Browns only managed to score eight total points on the day, it’s safe to say that it was a rather lengthy list of complaints, but surprisingly enough, his main gripe was with his special teams unit rather than his offense.
“[San Francisco] had a drive start on the 18 after a muffed punt that lead to a touchdown. They had a drive start on the 25 after a failed fourth and inches that lead to a touchdown, a fourth and one on the plus 42 that lead to a field goal. That’s not the way to play a good team, where you’re giving them short fields. That’s not the right way. I’ll fix this.”
For better or worse, and likely worse, the Browns still have five more regular season outings to get through. It’s hard to expect much of anything from them throughout the next month, but there’s still three more home games remaining on the schedule.
In an ideal world, they’d be able to at least give their hometown crowd something worth remembering before the season expires, but then again, nothing has been ideal in Cleveland for quite some time now, and that will more than likely continue to be the case for the foreseeable future.
