The Shedeur Sanders era may or may not have started Sunday night. If it did, it looked a lot like the other failed Browns’ so-called eras, as the Browns extended their dismal season with another Browns-style loss, this one a 23-16 garden variety spanking from the Baltimore Ravens.
The game had all the usual Browns footprints, including — why, of course! — the final score. But this loss was spiced up by a second-half curtain call that Browns fans, and the subject himself, have been waiting for forever.
Sunday, forever arrived.
Ravens 23, Browns 16: Shedeur Sanders struggles in debut, Myles Garrett’s 4 sacks wasted
But so did another loss. This one to the hated Ravens. The Browns actually held the lead into the fourth quarter.
But, as is usually the case with the Browns, they did not hold the lead when time expired.
But the Dawg Pounders did get something almost as exciting as a win to bark about. They got Sanders, the one and the only (well, aside from his father) and, for a brief moment, it looked like the Fighting Stefanskis were on their way to a two-tone finish: winning the game AND cheering a successful debut from Sanders, the people’s choice.
It didn’t happen.
Browns fans are used to bad games, failed strategies and lousy drafts. This would be just another one thrown on the pile of what might have been.
At the very least, and that’s exactly how this one should be labeled, the arrival of Sanders was not exactly the arrival of another one of the influx of whiz-bang rookie quarterbacks that seems to be the rage these days.
Many of them hit the ground running in their debuts. Sanders? He simply hit the ground.
Notes: Devin Bush gets pick-six, Carson Schwesinger good again as linebackers star
But don’t blame that on Deion’s son. Shedeur has been cooling his heels forever in the Browns’ discombobulated quarterback corral. He’s been biding his time in Berea, wondering, as were many, when he was going to get his chance to actually play in a game and show his wares.
The big day came Sunday, and tagging along was another Browns loss. Hey, you can’t have a Sanders and a victory, too, right? Well, you could. But not with the Browns’ backup band.
Indeed, there were many question marks, raised brows and arched eyebrows about how the Browns have handled Sanders since they drafted him.
How have they handled him?
They haven’t.
He’s been the one constant that the Browns’ think tankers seemed determined to ignore while the organization cleaned out its quarterback cupboard. Going all the way back to the NFL Draft, the bizarre handling of the quarterback strategy was almost indecipherable, with Sanders seemingly reduced to the mop closet.
Meanwhile, the parade of quarterbacks, young and old, who were available to be looked at by the Browns seemed to include everyone but Sanders.
Indeed, he seemed to be mostly an afterthought when the organization started bringing in youngsters and oldsters and other would-be quarterbacks.
Not only did Sanders not get a fair and extended look under game conditions, the Browns seemed almost determined to NOT give him some at-bats.
Not surprisingly, fans erupted with excitement in the third quarter as Sanders jogged onto the field for his first attempt to show his new bosses that he has the goods.
Whether he does remains to be seen, but it certainly should not have gone this long without a look-see under game action.
There was no excuse for that. The Browns, under no conditions, were expected to be contenders in their division this season. That made this season the perfect time to throw Sanders out there and see if the Browns’ quarterback scientists could mold him into a quarterback worth playing.
Instead, all Sanders, and all Sanders’ fans, got was silence.
It wasn’t until Sunday that he got a chance to run an offense under honest to goodness game conditions. This was the perfect setup for a rookie quarterback to be drafted, to play and to be evaluated.
Instead, the Browns, in typical Browns style, did none of the above, unless you count totally ignoring a potential quarterback of the future. Instead, the Browns, for whatever reason, put Sanders on the shelf and seemingly forgot about him.
One would think, given an organization such as the Browns, that the team would have had some sort of game plan the day after the draft.
If they did, it never showed itself this season until Sunday, which was far too late and far too useless. That should have happened months ago.
Instead, the Browns did the opposite.
They played Dillon Gabriel for most of the season. Sunday, they dusted the cobwebs off Sanders and put him into a real, live NFL game.
The results were predictable.
But don’t blame Sanders. Blame the organization.
