With Cleveland Browns rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders making his Dawg Pound debut on a cold and windy day inside Huntington Bank Stadium, Sunday's game against the 8-4 San Francisco 49ers was always going to be a tough one to win.
With how Myles Garrett and the defense has been going, the Browns’ best chance was to run the football, limit mistakes, and make nothing easy for Brock Purdy and company.
Cleveland botched that latter point brutally, and head coach Kevin Stefanski deserves the lion’s share of the blame.
San Francisco’s average starting field position, over 11 offensive possessions, was its own 46 yard line. It started five of those drives in Cleveland territory, including four straight in the second half.
It was painfully clear to every Browns fan watching what caused that massive momentum swing midway through the third quarter. With his team trailing just 10-8 at the time, Stefanski kept his offense on the field on fourth-and-1 from their own 33. Not only did the Browns actually snap the ball — they snapped it to tight end Harold Fannin Jr. in a QB sneak formation, and the rookie fumbled the snap for a turnover.
The 49ers marched 32 yards for a touchdown on their ensuing possession to take a 17-8 lead, and never looked back. They wound up starting their next three possessions from the Cleveland 47, 18 and 42 due to some bad football, specifically on special teams.
Stefanski addressed his game-swinging decision postgame, but he somehow found a way to make matters worse.
Cleveland Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski just made his fourth-down gaffe even harder to defend
Stefanski opened his postgame presser on Sunday lamenting the mistakes that led to San Francisco’s dominant edge in field position.
What he didn’t do was take responsibility for a brutal coaching decision that wound up costing his team a chance to win the game.
“That’s not the way to play a good team, where you’re giving them short fields,” Stefanski said. “With our defense, we’ve got to make them earn it, and I don’t think we did that today. That’s on me to get it fixed.
I felt good (about the play). I think there’s always the obvious risk when you go for it in those situations. If you feel good about the plays you have, and your players, you feel good about converting on those distances. Just felt good about the call. Didn’t get it done.”
NFL head coaches hide behind this type of non-answer all the time, and it should resonate (and infuriate) fans. The“we believe in our guys,” cliche comes with zero accountability. It may sound nice coming through the microphone, but it should ring hollow in the locker room.
Even if the Browns converted the first down in that situation, they would have been about 65 yards away from the end zone, in a two-point game, with 7:08 still remaining in the third quarter.
It was an extremely reckless call to leave the offense out there and snap the ball — never mind with Sanders on the sideline; if fans aren’t annoyed enough by what transpired, Stefanski’s decision to snap the ball to his tight end, rather than running back Quinshon Judkins in their Wildcat package that’s been producing results, only makes it worse.
This one falls squarely on Stefanski for putting his young team in a difficult spot, for no logical reason. His explanation afterwards only pours more gas on the fire for Cleveland's expected regime change in January.