After months of the Cleveland Browns insisting there was no quarterback controversy, Shedeur Sanders’ first start of the season made that position harder to maintain.
With Deshaun Watson unavailable, Sanders guided the Browns to within a single point of a road win over the New Orleans Saints in Week 9.
Watson had entered concussion protocol earlier in the week after self-reporting symptoms on Tuesday.
He cleared the protocol by Saturday and was listed as questionable, yet he remained in street clothes on the sideline while Sanders took the snaps.
Similar situations elsewhere in the league have not always produced an immediate return to the regular starter; coaches sometimes stick with the player who received the bulk of first-team practice work and for whom the game plan was built.
Sanders finished 19-of-31 for 297 yards and two touchdowns.
He led a late field-goal drive that tied the game and forced overtime, then answered in the extra period with another touchdown drive that again knotted the score.
A missed two-point conversion prevented what would have been a comeback win and left the Browns short of a 6-3 record.
Head coach Todd Monken addressed the performance directly afterward.
“I’m really proud of him and how hard he’s worked since I’ve been here,” Monken said. “He wasn’t perfect, I wasn’t perfect. But for a guy that really hasn’t taken snaps with 1s in what, 10 weeks? … To come in there and continue to battle — really, really proud of him.” He added, “He gave us a chance at the end, he really did.”
When asked whether Sanders had made a case to start the following week against the Houston Texans or whether the team would return to Watson, Monken declined to answer.
“I mean, how long has it been, 30 minutes since the game ended?” he responded. “I’m not getting into the quarterback. If we wanna talk about Shedeur, we can talk about Shedeur.”
Watson is in the final season of his five-year contract with Cleveland and entered the game with a 5-3 record.
Through eight weeks he had completed 65.5 percent of his passes for 1,806 yards, seven touchdowns and three interceptions, while adding 217 rushing yards and a score. He had also been sacked a league-high 33 times.
The Browns now face a short week of evaluation before deciding who will take the field against Houston.
Sanders’ production and late-game poise have placed the question squarely in front of the coaching staff, even as Monken continues to treat the decision as one that will not be settled in the immediate aftermath of a single afternoon.
