The Cleveland Browns opened the 2026 season with a rough trip to Jacksonville, and by the end of it there wasn’t much left to sort through beyond a few bright spots in a 34-10 loss that was never really in doubt.
Jacksonville, coming off a 13-4-0 season and an AFC South title, played like the far more settled team. Cleveland, with a new head coach, new offensive and defensive coordinators, and plenty of new faces, spent most of the afternoon trying to keep up and failing. The Browns were outclassed on the road, and the gap showed up everywhere from third downs to the secondary to the penalty count.
Still, a few Browns managed to stand out amid the wreckage.
Raheim Sanders was one of the few players who consistently gave Cleveland a spark. With Jacksonville scoring often enough to create plenty of return chances, Sanders made the most of them.
He finished with three kickoff returns for 130 yards, an average of 43.3 yards per return. His 74-yard burst in the third quarter was the best of the bunch, and he also ripped off a 31-yarder in the second quarter and a 37-yarder in the fourth.
Sanders wasn’t even the original kickoff returner; that job belonged to Dylan Sampson before he was injured early.
Linebacker Carson Schwesinger also kept working, regardless of the scoreboard. He led the Browns with 10 tackles and added one quarterback hit and one tackle for loss. The lone blemish came in the second quarter, when tight end Brenton Strange got loose on him for a touchdown.
Rookie receiver Denzel Boston provided Cleveland’s one real offensive highlight. He waited most of the game before making his mark, then came down with an excellent deep-ball touchdown catch. Boston had four targets, two receptions and 59 yards, good for a 29.5-yard average per catch.
Kicker Andre Szmyt did his job cleanly. He went 1 for 1 on field goals and 1 for 1 on PATs, putting Cleveland on the board with the game’s first points for the Browns and avoiding a shutout. His kickoffs were also placed well.
Beyond that, the Browns had a long list of problems.
Deshaun Watson’s day started badly and mostly stayed that way. Cleveland moved the ball well on its first possession until Watson threw directly to linebacker Foyesade Oluokun, who wasn’t even covering a man and simply took the pass intended for Jerry Jeudy.
Eight plays later, Jacksonville had a touchdown. Watson nearly threw another interception on the Browns’ next drive while trying to find Harold Fannin, then later lost a fumble before recovering it and killing a third-and-10.
He also floated what was described as a lame duck throw to KC Concepcion in the second quarter. The touchdown pass to Boston with 1:52 left was the rare vintage Watson moment.
The penalties were just as ugly. Cleveland piled up 11 for 75 yards, and the sequence before halftime was especially brutal.
After a 20-yard completion to Jeudy and an 11-yard catch by Sanders, the Browns had first down at Jacksonville’s 39 with 51 seconds left. An incompletion to Isaiah Bond was followed by a holding call on Zion Johnson.
Then came a false start by Tytus Howard, another holding call on Johnson after Watson scrambled for nine, and the drive collapsed into a second-and-34 from the Cleveland 37. The half ended without any chance at a field goal.
The pass defense was another mess. Trevor Lawrence picked Cleveland apart with completions of 32, 30, 22, 18, 16 and 14 yards among the bigger gains, and 10 Jacksonville receivers caught passes.
Nine of those completions moved the chains, including a second-and-18 for 22 yards, a third-and-six for 14 yards and a second-and-19 that turned into a 32-yard touchdown. Tyson Campbell missed tackles, Myles Harden gave too much cushion, and Ronnie Hickman was late getting over to help and then overran coverage on Jacobi Meyers in the third quarter for another score.
Harden had a rough afternoon in coverage overall. Jacksonville kept completing passes on him, and Parker Washington’s touchdown in the first quarter came after Washington beat him badly to the corner. The receiver had five steps on Harden after fooling him off the initial break, and Harden finished with just two tackles.
The offense as a whole never found footing. Cleveland gave up five sacks, Watson spent much of the game under fire, and the Browns didn’t help themselves by asking him to drop back five to eight yards after shotgun snaps.
The result was one interception, a dropped interception, two fumbles with one lost, an 0-2 showing in the red zone, 87 rushing yards, poor third-down work, 1-for-2 on fourth down and only 14 first downs. The projected weapons barely showed up: Fannin had two catches, Boston two, Jeudy two, Bond none and Concepcion four.
One of the few defensive linemen who held up was Mason Graham. He was solid in the middle, handled his gap responsibility and generated some pressure on passing downs.
He also produced Cleveland’s only sack, getting inside on Robert Hainsey in the second quarter to reach Lawrence on a third-and-one that forced a punt. Later, he knifed into the backfield for a four-yard loss on Bhayshul Tuten with 13:19 left in the third quarter.
Graham finished with five tackles, one sack, two tackles for loss and one quarterback hit.
Jared Verse didn’t make much noise in the box score, but that was partly a matchup issue. The TV broadcast barely mentioned him outside of discussion tied to the Myles Garrett trade, and he was largely held in check by left tackle Anton Harrison. Verse ended with four tackles, no sacks, no quarterback hits and one tackle for loss.
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