In his NFL debut upon short notice, Shedeur Sanders was 4 of 16 passing for 47 yards with one interception and two sacks, and ran three times for 16 yards. (Cleveland Browns)
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Editor's note: Tony Grossi is a Cleveland Browns and NFL analyst for TheLandOnDemand.com and 850 ESPN Cleveland. He has covered the Browns since 1984.
Kevin Stefanski’s worst nightmare came to be on Sunday when he was forced to play Shedeur Sanders in a tight game against the Baltimore Ravens without ever giving the rookie backup quarterback first-team practice reps. Ever.
You can blame Stefanski for showering rookie Dillon Gabriel with every available rep since he took over as the starter six weeks ago. Or you can blame GM Andrew Berry, whose bright idea it was to trade veteran quarterback Joe Flacco and leave the coaches with two rookie quarterbacks with 13 games left in a season going nowhere.
Whomever is at fault, the result was fairly predictable.
Sanders took over for a concussed Gabriel to start the second half with a 16-10 lead. He presided over six possessions and they ended in punt, interception, punt, punt, punt and turnover on downs.
The Ravens used a trick play on a fourth-and-1 “tush push” formation to take their first lead with 2:01 remaining, and they survived two Sanders throws in the end zone at the end to walk away with a 23-16 win despite four sacks from Myles Garrett and three defensive turnovers, including a Pick 6 by linebacker Devin Bush.
Sanders’ numbers in his NFL debut were coyote ugly – 4 of 16 for 47 yards, one interception, and he took two sacks.
But nobody was more disconsolate at the end of the day than receiver Gage Larvadain.
The undrafted rookie from South Carolina had both hands on the ball on a desperate Sanders pass in the end zone on the next-to-last play of the game, only to have it knocked out by Baltimore cornerback Chidobe Awuzie, who was all over him.
For over an hour after the game ended, with most players showered, dressed and on their way home, Larvadain sat at his locker, fully dressed in uniform from head to toe, looking down at the floor and occasionally at his hands.
“I caught it. He hit it out,” Larvadain said barely above a whisper. “I got to make that play for us, for Shedeur, for everybody.
“I make that play 9 times out of 10. That was just the one that I didn’t.”
Sanders and Larvadain spent a lot of time connecting during training camp and now in Stefanski’s “hungry dawg” periods after regular practice to give the little-used rookies extra reps together. Truth is, Larvadain’s sure hands were the reason he overcame long odds to make the team out of training camp.
Sanders said he expected the pass to be caught because he expects every pass to be completed “until it’s not.”
“I know Gage is a dawg,” Sanders said.
“I feel he threw it because he knows I catch that 10 times out of 10,” Larvadain said. “I caught it and he hit it out. I just got to finish it. That’s why he threw it to me.”
The play before, Sanders failed to connect with Isaiah Bond, who was open behind a defender in the end zone. The pass sailed out of the end zone. After Awuzie’s PBU on Larvadain, Sanders’ fourth-down pass for tight end David Njoku was short, sending everybody home.
Afterwards, Stefanski had to answer if he now regretted not preparing Sanders better with occasional reps with the first team. “I think that was my first ball to Jerry [Jeudy] all year,” Sanders said of his three targets for the Browns’ No. 1 receiver, one of which was intercepted.
Stefanski said, “You’re always trying to get your starter ready to play and, certainly, when your starter is a rookie, those are very valuable reps. When your backup is a rookie also, you do everything in your power to get our quarterbacks as many reps as possible – post-practice, after practice, extra meeting time.
“So that’s just part of how it goes. But the bottom line is we trust both of our players. We trust all of our players because of the work that they put in.”
Sanders, who greeted the media with a big smile after the game, said it was “truly exciting” to get his first taste of NFL action.
“I don’t think I played good at all,” he said. “I just think overall we got to go next week and understand so then we have a week to prepare stuff I like to do.”
Gabriel was no great shakes in managing the game to a 16-10 lead at halftime. He was 7 of 10 for 68 yards and one sack, and was booed on three occasions when three errant passes on third downs led to three Andre Szmyt field goals.
The only touchdown scored by the Browns came when linebacker Devin Bush intercepted a Lamar Jackson pass caroming off the hands of running back Keaton Mitchell and he bounced off several tackle attempts on his way to a 23-yard touchdown return.
It’s hard to imagine a better defensive performance against Jackson than the one turned in by Garrett (four sacks, five TFLs, 5 quarterback hits), Bush, and linebacker Carson Schwesinger (10 tackles, two TFLs, one interception).
Garrett, who had five sacks in a losing cause to the Patriots, now has 11 sacks in his last four games and 15 overall this season. He is the first player in NFL history to record at least 12 sacks in six consecutive seasons.
“I have to make bigger plays,” Garrett shrugged.
“No matter what, we had them where we wanted,” said tackle Shelby Harris. “It was fourth-and-1 and we have to get that stop. You can bring up the offense all you want, but it’s defense. We have to bring a complete game. We can’t have these little lapses.
The fourth-and-1 play that produced the winning touchdown was a brilliant call by Ravens offensive coordinator Todd Monken that took Jim Schwartz’s defense completely by surprise.
With the score tied at 16-16 and the Ravens at the 35, the offense lined up in their version of the “tush push” – a direct snap to tight end Mark Andrews with Jackson lined up behind him. But instead of forging ahead for the first down, as they’ve shown every other time in the alignment, Andrews swept to the right edge of his offensive line and sprinted untouched to the end zone.
“They just had a good call for what we were in,” Garrett said.
Such creativity is glaringly absent from a Browns’ offense saddled with rookies everywhere.
Now at 2-8, and with his starting quarterback in concussion protocol, Stefanski faces the task of preparing Sanders for his first NFL start against the Raiders in Las Vegas.
You think he’ll get some reps with the first team?