CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Browns were dominated by the San Francisco 49ers in a 26-8 outing on Sunday.
The Browns offense came off a pretty good showing in the Week 12 win over the Raiders, so it was natural to expect a repeat of that in Week 13.
But aside from its sole touchdown run, Cleveland’s offense posted only one other productive series where it moved the chains.
The rest of the game came with offensive uncertainty that hurt the Browns in the long run, to the point where the 49ers defense controlled the pace of the game.
How did San Francisco accomplish this? Here’s how they did so from their own words:
A big storyline going into the game was rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders making his first home start.
It was his second start overall, his first coming last week where he completed 55.0% of his passes for 209 yards, one score and one pick in a road win over the Raiders.
However, the 49ers looked to remind Sanders he was still an inexperienced rookie.
“Talented young quarterback, but very fresh,” defensive end Clelin Ferrell said after the game.
The 49ers kept the pressure on Sanders long enough to break through Cleveland’s offensive line and force multiple scrambles, throwaways and three sacks.
Two of them belonged to Ferrell, who also had a team-high nine tackles.
The first came on a third-and-15 in the early part of the second quarter, where Sanders’ bad tendency for retreating appeared again.
“We knew that maybe the playbook wasn’t going to be as big. We knew they were going to come out and try to run the ball,” Ferrell said.
Cleveland did rely on the run game, specifically through Quinshon Judkins.
The rookie was solid and weaved through 49ers defenders for 91 yards on 23 carries (4.0 per carry), which featured a game-high 17-yard run. While Judkins didn’t account for a touchdown, he did score in the wildcat-formation on Cleveland’s two-point conversion.
But even then, the 49ers eventually limited Judkins. Seventeen of his carries traveled no more than 5 yards downfield, including a stop on a fourth-and-1.
“Once we got that under control, we were able to really put some pressure on it and sort itself out,” Ferrell said.
Along with Ferrell contributing on the defensive side was Keion White, who had the only other sack outside of Ferrell.
“We started off a little cold in the beginning, but really got our feet settled in the second half and stopped the run,” White said. “And kind of make them call passing plays, even though they didn’t want to.”
White’s sack came on a fourth-and-16 in the fourth quarter. Sanders stood in the pocket for a bit before White came through and interrupted Sanders’ plans.
San Francisco entered Sunday ranked 26th in passing yards allowed (241.8) and ranked ninth in fourth-down conversions allowed per game (0.7).
They flipped the script and allowed only 115 passing yards, while staying true to the fourth-down stops and keeping Cleveland unsuccessful on all four attempts.
Furthermore, it shows the Browns offense it still has work to do.
Football Insider newsletter free trial: Take a minute and sign up for a free trial of our Football Insider newsletter, featuring exclusive content from cleveland.com’s Browns reporters.