Sanders’ 4 TDs Not Enough as Browns Fall to Titans

Sanders’ 4 TDs Not Enough as Browns Fall to Titans

[Music] [Music] live on a cloudy, cold, and snowy Sunday night. Welcome on into the bullpen. I’m your host, Adam the Bull, and I am brought to you today as always by Bet Rivers and the Bet Rivers Network. The Browns lose a heartbreaker in disturbing fashion at the end. I don’t know what was with the play calling. Just terrible. We’ll get to all of it. How did Shador Sanders play? I’ll give you my thoughts in a second. Lot to unpack from an embarrassing 3129 loss to the what was the worst team in football, the Tennessee Titans and now the Browns are just a game back of the Titans for and uh the Giants I believe for the worst record in the National Football League. Lot to break down. I’ll read your chat messages as well. It’s all coming up on today’s edition, postgame edition of the bullpen with Adam the Bull. Yes, I did forget the name of the show for 8 seconds. And it’s brought to you by Bet Rivers. And Bet Rivers players who place a same game parlay of at least $10 on NFL or NCAA football games will receive an entry into the weekly Squares game. Winning squares can earn up to a $50 bonus bet per entry. See the Bet Rivers app or website for full details. I’ll have some thoughts on the Buckeyes lost to Indiana coming up a little bit later as well, but the Browns lose 31-29. It was a very strange game. The Browns defense was terrible in the first quarter. Awful first quarter. The the uh Titans had a couple of big plays, including a 65 yardd run uh by Tony Pard. Uh that was a one-play drive for a touchdown. Cam Ward, I thought, played very well in the first quarter. And then after that, the defense kind of settled down. Browns had a couple of good drives in the second quarter. Uh after they got a field goal following a turnover in the first quarter. I thought Shador Sanders played extremely well in the second quarter. I thought he played great in the second quarter. Third quarter, not so much. Bad pick thrown by Shadore there. Titans score the only points in the third quarter. They tack on after tur after the turnovers. First by Shadore again. And that was a terrible throw by Shador on the pick. A terrible decision to throw that ball period. And then a u after that the terrible fumble by Dylan Samson. You I mean you can’t just fumble the ball when you get hit. I mean come on that’s that’s inexcusable by Dylan Samson there. But down 31-7. Offense looking kind of dead for most of the second half. The Browns with the Titans playing prevent defense are able to move the ball down the field. They score a touchdown. A nice um a nice run by by Shador Sanders for a touchdown. Then they get the ball back after the defense, you know, held tight. Now I I I’ve fast forwarded best. Obviously an important moment in the game. So they score the first touchdown to make it 31 uh 23, right? 3123. and the Browns go for two. Now, I we’ve discussed this before. Um when for me, it’s a new trend that a lot of coaches do here recently. Uh I you can make the case in this specific circumstance. The Browns maybe should have kicked the extra point. I could have lived with it. they had. I generally believe you go for two when you’re down eight because you’re in most cases, obviously it didn’t happen here, you’re going to make at least one out of two, if not both, two-point conversions, especially against a bad Titans team. And if you make the first one, it gives you the opportunity to win it by just kicking an extra point. And at the very least, you go for two and hopefully make it at least the second time, which obviously they didn’t, and you tie the game. So, it didn’t work out. uh you know, Chador Sanders fumbled the ball or it was a bad snap. I I I you really couldn’t see it anyway, it didn’t work out. So, okay. And and we could argue till we’re blue in the face. I know some people just don’t get it why you go for two there. Uh don’t care about analytics, don’t want to hear about it. That’s fine. It’s silly to argue it. The play calling on the other hand is fair to more reasonable to argue about. We’ll get to that. So, they missed a two-pointer. It’s 30. It remains 31-23. Browns stopped the Titans three and out on their next possession. Browns get the ball back. Shador Sanders with with what was a tremendous drive. Now, you could say that the second to last touchdown, all right, you know, they’re down by 14. Uh the Titans are clearly playing prevent defense. They’re not good enough to begin with. That’s fine. You want to take some credit away from him there. All right. You know, I know there’s a lot of people that can look to take credit away from him, but that last drive, the Titans know that the Browns have to score a touchdown and they committed some stupid penalties, but I thought Shador made some very nice throws on that final drive of the game, including a great throw and a great catch by Harold Fannon, who had a a monster monster performance. Eight catches on 11 targets for 114 yards and that touchdown that made it within two. Now, the Browns obviously in that situation have to go for two again because they failed the first time. A I even though Shadore, you know, had a problem with the snap on the first two-point conversion, I I can’t have my quarterback off the field on a two-point conversion to tie the game. I thought that was an extremely stupid decision by Kevin Stfansky. I like I like some of the Wildcat that they’ve run, but running a trick play on a two-point conversion to tie the game against the Tennessee Titans is stupid. Now, in that same vein, that’s how you could argue that they maybe should have just, you know, gone for one. And I get it. Um, if they had, they’d probably make both and you go into overtime. I’m not going to go against my philosophy in general um that I go for two in that situation, but the play call on that final one was ridiculous. Either Judkins didn’t know what he was supposed to do or somebody else did the wrong thing. I’m sure Kevin Stfansky either spoke or is speaking right now. So, we’ll we’ll probably get an update at some point, but I don’t care. You can’t have your quarterback in that situation. You cannot have your quarterback off the field. You can’t try a trick play in that situation. Not to me, not against a bad team. So, I don’t understand that the quarterback had done a great job on that final drive and you don’t give him a shot. Um I I you know, again, I don’t understand that. I I don’t understand that at all. So, again, so I know people are going to make a big deal to going for two, especially anti-analytics people. I hear you. I disagree. You’re not gonna change my mind. I’m not going to change your mind. So, I’m I’m not gonna spend much time on that, but uh but it’s just the play call on the final play beyond stupid. Uh and the Browns obviously don’t get the ball back in the final minute of the game and they lose by a 3129 final. Uh my thoughts overall on Shadore Sanders is I thought he played his best game. Uh I I thought you know you look at what Shadore’s done played he played his worst his worst performance was in that second half against Baltimore right then he played a good pretty good game against the Raiders then last week uh he was not good it was an it was not a good performance in the loss to why can’t I think of who they played last week um geez thank you 49ers and then so we went down we Here we went up to here. We went down here and now back up. I thought this was his best performance. I understand I understand that the Titans are the worst team in football. That his two best performances were against a terrible Titans team. Terrible. And a terrible Raiders team. Two of the worst teams in football. I get it. He’s got a lot more to prove. Um, as one of the few people in the I feel like in the country that can talk about Shador Sanders without incredible bias one way or the other, uh, this game did not prove anything for certain, but this was a very good performance overall. I mean, if you could you could say all you want that the Titans stink, which they do, and you got to factor that in. You could say all you want they lost the game, and that’s true, and you got to factor that in. The completion percentage was terrible, especially for the early portion of the second half. All true. But you know what else is true? The talent around him stinks. That’s true. They couldn’t run the ball. That’s true. Quinn Sean Judkins, Dylan Samson, Malachi Corley rushed it 17 times for 32 yards. That’s less than two yards per attempt. They couldn’t run the ball. All right. All right. If you take out Shador Sanders running, Quinnshot had one run for 14 yards. If you take that out, the Browns ran it 16 times for 18 yards. So, they basically averaged one yard per carry from non Sanders guys besides the one solid run from Judkins. They couldn’t run it. They were down three starting offensive linemen and the starters aren’t that good. So, he’s playing behind a terrible offensive line and they protected all right. And I thought he for the most part did a good job of avoiding uh the the backing up, you know, on the play that he threw the pick. He was too far back. He was on his back foot. He made a bad decision. Threw that ball. It was bad. The intentional grounding was a bad play. That that’s kind of a lack of awareness there. And there were a couple other times where they brought up on the broadcast, he’s patting the ball, waiting too long. He was far from perfect. Let’s not get crazy. But if you can’t see after this game that he played well, he played a pretty good game, I don’t even know what to tell you. I mean, I’ll see what the uh the PFF grades are and all that and we w we’ll all watch it back, right, with the all 22, but I saw a lot of good things from Shadore Sanders in this game. I saw a lot of good throws. I thought um what was the moment there? That touchdown pass he threw to um the second touchdown pass to Enjoku was a great throw. The fourth touchdown pass or the fourth uh touchdown to Harold Fannon was a great throw. He he made some really nice plays down the field. The throw to Jerry Judy, the long completion to him was great. Another completion to Fannon that that he found Fannon in the middle of the field just, you know, he had to throw it in the perfect spot to get it to him for a big gain. I think that was 35 yards. That was a nice throw. He did a good job, you know, again, outside of the pick what the defense gave him. Uh, making those short throws. I just thought there were a lot of good things, a lot of positives from Shador Sanders in this game. Again, clearly far from perfect. Some makes mistakes were made. Clearly, the competition was bad, but nonetheless, that the the Titans uh defensive line was not bad, right? They got a couple some good players on that defensive line. And I thought Shador Sanders for the most part made the right decision in this game. You want you could you could argue the pick cost him the game because it led to the go-ahead touchdown, but I thought I thought Shador Sanders did enough to give the Browns the win. He throws for 364 yards, three touchdowns, one pick. I’m not going to argue that his number that he played as quite as well as those numbers, but he played well. He played well in this game. There was way more good than bad in my mind. Uh I haven’t been convinced to not draft a quarterback. We’ll talk about Mendoza later. Uh but uh I haven’t been convinced. Not I mean this this was a again terrible loss. Let let’s make that very clear. You lost to a horrible team in the end. The defense did not play well enough. Uh you know uh I I Miles Garrett had a sack to get to 20, but he was not as impactful in this game as we’ve seen. I know he had a couple of quarterbacks. He made some plays, but he wasn’t as impactful. Denzel Ward got banged up in this game, so he wasn’t as big a factor. Some of the guys were used to making big impact in the game. We’re not I mean Devin Bush had the nice pick. That was a really smart play. Um that play was unbelievable when Grant Delp could not sack Cam Ward. By the way, I I saw you look at Cam Ward’s numbers, they look terrible. I I do think if you watch the game, I thought Cam Ward played played well at times and he you know he didn’t play great and um uh you know but the gap between Shadore and Cam Ward wasn’t what the numbers would lead you to believe. But uh C you you see the the and you see the lack of talent they have. I mean Tennessee just has nothing. Uh although Tony Pard was the one guy I mean they Tai J uh uh Tai Tai J Spears led them in receiving yards with 28. They have nothing in the passing game. But Tony Pard it was like he flashed back to his Dallas days and had a monster game. I mean he had that 65 yard run but even without that 65 yard run he still had 96 yards on 24 carries with which is four yards a carry not including a 65 yard run. So he was great. the Browns run defense was was really poor in this game. It was disappointing to see. Um I think I think the injury uh the injury to um I can’t think of anybody’s name today. The injury to Malik Collins was very clear. I think it affected Miles Garrett today and it clearly affected the run defense. I mean, the Browns run defense has been great all year. The only guy that really had a big game was Jamir Gibbs and and a a overthe-hill Tony Pard kills the Browns. I I I I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this was the first game without him and that the Browns run defense was terrible. So, it tells you how important Malik Collins has been to the Browns. Miles Garrett did get the one sack. He’s up He’s up to 20. He needs three to break the record. Four games left. The Browns have a legitimate chance uh to be to have the number one pick in the draft. I don’t think they will, but uh they they have a legitimate chance right now at three and 10. They’re tied with the Jets. They’re tied with the Saints who beat Baker Mayfield and the Bucks today. Another shocker. The the Commanders are also 3-10. So those four teams are tied at 3-10. The Raiders are 2-10 playing right now. The Titans are 2-1. The Giants are 2-1. So, uh, I think the, let’s see, the tiebreaker strength of schedule, who had a the worst record against the worst schedule. So, right now, the Titans would still uh be the first pick in the draft. However, of the teams that have three wins or less, and there’s eight of them, the Cardinals, the Saints, the Commanders, the Giants, the Titans, the Raiders, the Browns, and the Jets. Those are 10 teams with three wins or less. Of those 10 teams, the Browns have the easiest strength of schedule to this point. Now, the Brown and and the Now the Browns, that’ll change because the next two weeks, the Browns are playing very good teams. They’re playing the Bears, the Bills, who won their ninth game today, the Steelers. Uh I think the Steelers won, didn’t they? Uh and then you play the Bengals. So, you you play one team that has a bad record, but that’s it. Yeah, the Steelers did win. They beat held on against the Ravens. Seven six. Seven and six. So, you’re playing three teams that have at least seven wins right now. So, that could change. But, as of right now, if the Browns if the Browns were tied with the Titans, the Browns would have the first pick because they have the easy easiest strength of schedule, but obviously that could change along the way. Can the Titans win another game? It’s possible. They’re playing the Saints second to last game of the year at home. Uh, and how about the Giants? Is there a winnable game for the Giants to get the the three win? I don’t think the Browns are going to win another game. I mean, they could they I guess they could. They could they could, you know, you never know. Uh but um watching how bad how how really not well the defense played. I don’t the scores in the second half were not totally on the defense because there was a couple of turnovers obviously gave him short fields, but they still gave up those touchdowns. wasn’t like in the past where they’ve held them to field goals. The Giants, let’s see, Giants have Yeah, the Giants. Oh, Giants could win. Yeah, they could win some games. They definitely could. The Giants win and they’ve I know the Giants haven’t won. They were what? They were two and four to start the year and now they’re two and 10. But the Giants have the Commanders at home next week, the Vikings at home the week after that. They’re at the Raiders and then the Cowboys at home. They’ll win at least one more game, I would think. Maybe two. Who the hell knows? So, yeah, I think the Browns got a legitimate shot if that’s something you’re looking at. That’s uh the two bright lights out of this game is that that you maybe got closer to the first overall pick. Whether the Browns end up taking a quarterback or not, if they end up first overall, I think they probably will. But even if you don’t, I mean, who knows? I mean, in a perfect world, Shador Sanders continues to play better. He’s great the last four games, but the Browns, you know, somehow lose. They get the first pick and they they trade it to a team that wants a quarterback. I know I’m getting crazy now. I know the odds of of that all happening is is probably nil, but it is what it is. Um, let’s take a look at uh a couple of other things in terms of the box score and what happened in this game. Final numbers for Shadore, 23 of 42, 364 yards, 8.7 per attempt. very good. Sacked only two times. That’s good for 13 yards. Three touchdowns. Some nice throw. Really nice throws. A very bad pick, but way more good decisions than bad. Mentioned the Browns couldn’t run the ball. Quinn Sean Judkins had one carry for 14 yards and then 13 carries for 12 yards. It was a struggle. He did catch the one big pass uh in in the early in the game to get him into the red zone, the 58 yard catch and run. Harold Fannon was the star offensively, eight for 114 with a touchdown. Jerry Judy had a big 60-yard grab early for a touchdown. Not much besides that, but got 76 yards total. Dylan Samson 5 for 64 out of the back field. Cedric Tilman had one catch. It was actually a really nice catch and then he got hurt later on what was a terrible personal foul call against the Titans. That contributed to the Browns scoring their third uh third touchdown. Uh yeah, that was a really bad call. Uh David and Jooku, one catch, one yard, one touchdown. Um and Jerome Ford, two for 10. Uh Gage Larvidan, two for 18. The leading tackler, of course, not a surprise, Carson Swissinger, who had 13. Devin Bush nine. Uh he also had the interception. Miles Garrett, I mentioned, had the 20th sack, three tackles for a loss, two QB hits, and a pass defended. And uh that was the the only sack of the game, Miles Garrett sack. I stunned. I mean, the Titans offensive line has been terrible. And the Browns did not get much pressure on Cam Ward. Only sacked one time. Uh that was really disappointing and it’ll be something to keep an eye on going forward. Special teams again was terrible. Andre Schmidt did make his one kick and Orquez was fine, but uh Larv was Larvidan fumbled again. He he got on top of it, but uh just nothing. Four punt returns. He averaged four yards per return. So nothing much doing there uh in the special teams. All right, let’s get to some uh fan reaction here and we’ll start here. Uh uh let’s see. Okay. Uh Jeremy Bey, this defense allowing 31 points to Tennessee isn’t good. Even though turnovers gave them short fields, 29 points should have been enough to win this game. That’s true. Now, you got to be fair about it after I just gave Shador his kudos. Uh we don’t know that the if the score if the Titans hadn’t scored 31, I don’t know that the Browns would have scored 29. And it would have been a different type of game in the fourth quarter. We’ll never know. But yes, 29 should have been enough to if you would have told me before the game the Browns were going to score 29. I would have thought they they won the game by a blowout. Sh 318 says, “With this coaching staff and predictable play calling, they still took this man out in the red zone. The game was a MF statement plus some put some respect on his name.” 12. Give him the franchise. You don’t give somebody a franchise based on one good game. But I was very I was impressed. I I thought Shador Sanders played well in this game. Obviously, we got to see a lot more. It’s going to be fascinating to see how it plays out and what decision the Browns make in this off seasonason. But as I said at the beginning of the show, uh I I I thought it was his best game. I thought he played well. Um okay, Nasty says Mendoza will have DG type numbers next season. We shall see. I’ll talk more about Mendoza. Uh Michael says, “Defense was a damn was a gigantic letdown.” Uh let’s see. Chris Gillespie, he played good. RGB, you’re a nutcase. Shadore is better than every quarterback in next year’s class. I’m a nutcase. I don’t even know what to say. I’m a nutcase. All right. Uh elephant 23 out of 42 is still only 55% accuracy rating on passes. Uh B barn starting a petition to get 12 out of this place. Uh I don’t I I I can’t win. I say Chador plays well. I’m still getting killed by people. I don’t even know what to say anymore. Uh, this guy Olsen Fish says, “I’m full.” Courtney Townsen, I can’t believe Cleveland media, y’all a joke. What do you have a problem with that I said? Mike Dobson, I want to be disrespectful to you, but I’m not because some of the things you say, I don’t understand. It’s not a quarterback out there that’s perfect. I don’t even understand what the complaint is. I just spent 10 minutes saying that I thought Shador Sanders played his best game and I thought he played very well. I don’t know what else you want me to say. I can’t believe the reaction from people. I I should I should I’m I should be used to it by this point. All right. Uh bridge gluey blocking this bias and toxic community now. Trash. Okay, good. Uh uh Donald missed Collins for sure. Mr. Chairman of the board. Has Stfansky been fired yet? If not, he should be. I think this may be the final straw. I think he should. I mean, I’ve said all season I thought he should be fired. This was um this was just I mean his play calling on the at the end there was terrible. Coach Jones Sanders is not a fifth round pick. Yes, he is. He was drafted in the fifth round. His comp by one scout was Joe Burrow. He was supposed to be a top two pick. Stop with the BS. I I don’t even I can’t I I can’t I can’t believe it. I shouldn’t be shocked. I thought the I thought the Shadore haters were going to be mad at me today. This is crazy. Okay, they are the both sides are angry, so I must be getting it right. Uh Jim Eagle says, “So what? They won the They won the game.” Uh no, I don’t know. Ernest Derry, every even veteran quarterbacks throw picks. What do we say when they throw interceptions? It’s a veteran mistake. Uh, I lost a viewer now. Wow. Being told to shut up. I’m full of crap. This is wild. Uh, what’s the bad take? I keep people seeing people saying I had a bad take. What is the bad taking? Please explain it to me what my bad take is. I have literally have both sides of this angry with me. It’s insane. I should just not read the the chats because this is just this is beyond stupid. You’re all out of your mind. You’re all out of your mind. All right. Um, I want to talk about the Buckeyes awful performance. Uh, the offense was just pathetic in and and listen, it doesn’t matter. They’re still probably going to win the national championship. But, um, clearly Ryan Day puckered up again. He’s done such a great job this year. Did a great job last year in the playoffs. I’m not going to lose my mind and say fire him like I did a lot last year before the college football playoff. But he puckered up. Once you go for it on fourth down and you don’t make it, then you don’t kick a field goal the second time. You’re like fourth and inches. You’re Ohio State. You’re undefeated. Don’t kick a field goal to tie the game there. You got to go for it. And they missed the field goal. I I it was a weird game. Uh it was it was a very weird game and I I hated that decision of kicking the field goal there and they missed it. Uh for neither I didn’t think either quarterback played great. I thought Fernando Mendoza was looked very shaky in the first quarter. Uh I thought after the first quarter he played extremely well. But, you know, my my friend Max, my buddy Max, who is one of the producers of this show, said to me something about Mendoza, because I hadn’t seen much of Mendoza before this game. And Max said something that bothered him about Mendoza was that he drops his eyes sometimes under pressure. And you know what? I noticed that, Max. I noticed that a couple of times, especially early in the game. So, and there were times there were some throws that Mendoza made that were great and Ohio State had great coverage or the numbers might have been a lot better. I think Fernando Mendoza looks like he’s going to be a solid NFL quarterback. Um, I say this wi without really having enough information to have a uh the, you know, certainty in what I’m saying, but just based on watching Mendoza yesterday, and again, it was against a an Ohio State defense that is fantastic. Fantastic. Um, I I think Mendoza will obviously he’s going to be a first round pick. I He doesn’t He doesn’t strike me as a no-brainer that you trade up whatever to get him. I I I don’t see that. I don’t see that. So, um we’ll see what happens when it comes to the draft. But, uh if the Browns did end up with Fernando Mendoza, I’d be like, “Okay, let’s give him a shot.” And if they didn’t, I’d be okay with that, too. Yeah. There. Again, as I said earlier, the perfect scenario is for Shador to build on his good performance today. Next four games they’re playing three well next three games you’re playing three teams that are either playoff teams or at least have a legitimate shot. And if he plays well enough that you don’t feel like you need to draft a quarterback, that’s the perfect scenario because then you could use the top 10 pick and the late first round pick or whatever it ends up being with the Jaguars to get in a perfect world a tackle and a wide receiver because whether Shador Sanders is going to be the quarterback next year or not, obviously they need to build up the talent around him and around whoever the quarterback is going going to end up being in the long term for the Browns because the talent around the quarterback this year for all the flaws in the quarterback play across the board uh the talent just stinks outside of uh Harold Fannon and and Judkins pretty much. And obviously and obviously the offensive line isn’t any good. Needs a a complete overhaul uh going forward. All right. Uh, thanks everybody for joining me. If you haven’t done so already, please hit the subscribe button. Um, make sure you do that. I appreciate it. Thanks to Max and Z for producing today. And thanks to all of you for watching and listening. I appreciate it. We’ll talk to you next time. Where else but right here in the bullpen with Adam the Bull, brought to you by Bri. See you everybody. Heat. Heat. [Music]

Shedeur Sanders threw for three touchdowns and ran for another, but the Browns simply couldn’t catch up to the Titans, losing 31-29 in Week 14. Adam the Bull reacts to yet another fruitless outing for Cleveland.

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