CLEVELAND, Ohio — Despite an uneven performance during Sunday’s 13-6 victory over the Steelers, Shedeur Sanders took a few more steps toward proving to the Browns he can be their QB1 in 2026.
“It felt good,” Sanders said after the game. “It felt good getting the win overall and especially the team we won against.
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“I think it’s bittersweet because I feel like on offense we’ve got to do our part. I’ve got to do my part a little bit more. We can’t be happy with 13 points on the board. So we’ve just got to be able to put up more points.”
Sanders was 17 of 23 for 186 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions for a 75.6 rating. He took no great consolation in the fact that he outpassed and earned a higher rating than future first-ballot Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers (64.9), who hugged and congratulated him after the game. Sanders also earned a higher completion percentage (74% to 54%).
Sanders was more so dismayed that he threw an ill-advised pick with 12:02 left in the fourth quarter, his second of the game, with the Browns clinging to a 10-6 lead. Retreating back and to the right under pressure, he heaved the ball back across his body toward Jerry Jeudy down the deep left side. But safety Kyle Dugger jumped the route and picked it off to start the Steelers at their 34.
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Sanders’ Hall of Fame dad, Deion Sanders, sitting in a suite at the game, was shown by the CBS cameras taking off his black cowboy hat after the pick and tapping his head with it five times before slipping it back on.
Fortunately for Sanders, the Browns defense bailed him out a second straight time by holding the Steelers to no points.
“The main thing is I just like throwing the ball,” Sanders said. “I just like throwing the ball a lot. And in some situations, you can’t just throw your dog a bone sometimes. You’ve got to be able to know when it’s a calculated risk, but I feel like our players are better than their player, so I just gave my guy a chance and we just ain’t come down with it and that’s just how I go.”
His first interception came with 4:55 left in the second quarter when Alex Highsmith hit him upon release and the ball popped off nose tackle Logan Lee’s helmet. Jack Sawyer swiped it and returned it 27 yards to the Browns’ 31.
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The Browns defense held, and Rodgers threw out of reach in the end zone for Scotty Miller on fourth and 1. Sanders almost threw a pick-six on his next play, but Steelers linebacker Nick Herbig dropped it.
But it’s a lot easier to forgive picks in a victory, Sanders’ second overall and first at home, and so it was.
“Yeah, obviously he wins, you know, gotta win,” Browns coach Kevin Stefanski said. “So that’s great for the young man. Gets to beat Pittsburgh, gets to beat a division rival. So, they’re not going to be easy, not in this division. So proud of him for that.
“There are always things he can clean up. I thought we got a little unlucky on that first interception. We can certainly learn from the second one and he will. But he continued to battle.”
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Aside from the two bad decisions, one of which he got away with, Sanders took it to the Steelers on his first two drives with efficiency and a nice mix of playmaking to jump out to a 10-0 lead with 5:11 left in the first quarter.
On his opening march, he slipped a would-be sack and found Brenden Bates for 19, and then fit a 10-yard pass into Jeudy to convert a third and 7. Andre Szmyt kicked a 50-yard field goal.
Sanders came back on his second drive and lifted a 42-yard play-action pass over Cedric Tillman’s shoulder to the Steelers’ 44. Five plays later, he underthrew tight end Harold Fannin Jr. on a deep ball down the right side between two defenders, but Fannin tracked the ball and corralled it for a 28-yard TD catch.
Unfortunately for Fannin and for the Browns, he aggravated his groin injury suffered Friday in practice and was done for the day.
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That left Sanders without his leading receiver (72 catches for 731 yards, 6 TDs) and also without his starting running back in Quinshon Judkins, who underwent season-ending surgery last week to repair his right dislocated ankle and broken fibula.
It brought one of Sanders’ training camp faves, first-year tight end Sal Canella into the game after he was elevated from the practice squad on Saturday.
“We kind of knew going into the game (Fannin) was banged up,” Sanders said. “So it wasn’t really super surprising. We’ve got great players on the Hungry Dawgs. So Sal was able to come back in and be able to get his feet wet.”
Granted, Sanders faced the Steelers’ 30th-ranked pass defense, and they were without premier edge rusher T.J. Watt, who sat out his third straight game with a collapsed lung. But he’s playing behind a makeshift offensive line — with left guard Joel Bitonio as the only full-time starter left standing — and didn’t have all of his weapons at his disposal.
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What’s more, Sanders didn’t start practicing with the starters until six weeks ago, and has made remarkable progress considering that he never took a first-team snap in training camp.
The victory also strengthened his case for the starting job next season in another meaningful way: the Browns tumbled from No. 3 to No. 6 in NFL draft order and moved further away from a shot at one of the top three quarterbacks in the draft.
The top three expected to come out are Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza, Oregon’s Dante Moore, and Alabama’s Ty Simpson, with those decisions being finalized by Jan. 24 for players in the National Championship Game.
If the Browns beat the Bengals next Sunday in the finale, they’ll likely drop further still. As it is, the Browns were eliminated from contention for the No. 1 overall pick with the win over the Steelers.
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When the Browns know their draft spot and who’s coming out, they’ll factor those into the debate over whether or not to move forward with Sanders as their QB1 for 2026. The decision will largely come down to whether or not the Browns believe that Sanders has more upside than one of the draft picks.
It will be impossible to know for sure if he can be their QB of the future on a seven-game sample size. Even if plays well in Cincinnati, it will still be difficult to determine if he’ll be a playoff-caliber QB over the next few years.
The Browns will have to go on Sanders’ traits and their own gut instincts about his potential.
But each week, he’s shown enough to remain in the conversation for the role, and he’s got one last shot next week to bolster his resume.
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