Shedeur Sanders’ first start of the 2026 season gave the Cleveland Browns a little of everything in New Orleans - a few explosive plays, plenty of pressure, and the same uneven offense they’ve been trying to clean up all year.
Sanders took over for Deshaun Watson against the Saints after Watson cleared concussion protocol, and Todd Monken stuck with Sanders for the road game. The result was a Browns attack that looked familiar in all the wrong ways: shaky protection, little consistency on the ground, and then a late push that nearly stole the night.
Monken kept things tight early, and Sanders spent much of the first half working underneath. He averaged 4.8 yards per completion in the opening two quarters, with the offense leaning heavily on check-downs rather than asking him to force throws. That approach kept Sanders clean in one sense - he finished with zero turnovers - but it also limited what the Browns could do until the game opened up later.
When Sanders finally had room to attack, he made it count. In the third quarter, he fired a ball down the right sideline to Denzel Boston, who used his size to haul in a 60-yard gain.
Then came the biggest swing of the day in the fourth quarter, when KC Concepcion found himself wide open for a 64-yard touchdown that briefly put Cleveland in front. Those were the Browns’ two biggest plays of the season, and both came when Sanders was allowed to rip it.
But the rough edges showed up too. On one third-down series, Quinshon Judkins ran the wrong play, forcing Sanders to dive forward and salvage what he could.
Later, with the ball at the one-yard line before halftime, the Browns botched the timing on a run to the left side. The right guard pulled, Sanders opened the wrong way, the exchange got tangled up, and the play was stopped.
The line didn’t make life any easier. Sanders was sacked five times and finished with 10 rushes for 28 yards, often scrambling just to get back to the line of scrimmage.
He is not a runner like Watson, and the Browns asked too much of him on the ground. Spencer Fano also had a rough sequence near the goal line, giving up a sack to Chase Young on second-and-goal before getting hit again on the next snap, forcing a hurried incompletion.
Sanders wasn’t spotless, either. At times, he held the ball too long, including a bad sack for an eight-yard loss in the fourth quarter when Cleveland was trying to drain clock.
Still, when the Browns needed a shot late, he delivered one. With a minute left, he missed on a throw to Concepcion on the first play of the drive, then came back on the next snap, got hit, threw off his back foot, and connected with Jerry Jeudy to set up a game-tying field goal attempt.
Harold Fannin Jr. was another piece of the puzzle. He and Sanders had a connection last season, but Fannin didn’t catch a pass in regulation.
That changed in overtime, when the Browns went uptempo and Sanders settled in by staying in the pocket and leaning on his check-downs. Faced with a blitz, he stood in and found Fannin underneath, and Fannin turned it into a touchdown after stiff-arming and stumbling his way to the end zone.
In the end, New Orleans was a mix of too many mistakes and not enough clean football. The Browns again leaned on late-game magic after another slow start, and the offense looked a lot like it did with Watson. Sanders should get another start before the bye week, giving Cleveland a better chance to evaluate what it has in him for the future.
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