CLEVELAND, Ohio — The two failed 2-point conversion attempts by the Cleveland Browns at the end of their 31-29 loss to the Tennessee Titans will be endlessly argued and discussed.
Head coach Kevin Stefanski was the first to admit that on Monday.
“When you come up short like you do, you think about everything and what you could do differently,” he said. “Obviously, when you get in those moments you have the calls ready to roll and plays that you’ve talked about pregame and throughout the week. There are going to be times where you want a call back.
“There’ll be times where you have success, and it didn’t come off exactly how you wanted it, but bottom line is, we came up short in both those tries.”
Immediately after the game, Stefanski took blame for both of the failed attempts over Cleveland’s final two drives of the game.
On the first, after trailing 31-17, rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders led the team on a five-play, 66-yard drive capped by a 7-yard scramble with 4:27 remaining.
Trailing by eight, the Browns decided to go for two points — it’s a classic analytics move, that we won’t spend the time debating here.
But the play never got off the ground as Sanders and center Luke Wypler, who replaced Ethan Pocic after the latter suffered a season-ending torn Achilles, had issues with the snap exchange. The ball was fumbled, and the Titans recovered.
“Obviously, center-quarterback exchanges, you don’t want them to show up in a game like that,” Stefanski said. “Those guys have had plenty of reps together. You get reps before and after a series, those types of things. So that was unfortunate for that to happen at that moment.”
While the first miss was bad enough, the second failed attempt managed to elicit even more questions.
With the game on the line, Sanders led a seven-play, 80-yard drive that ended with a 7-yard pass to tight end Harold Fannin Jr. with 1:03 left.
But in what was maybe the most controversial move of the day, the Browns took Sanders off the field and lined rookie running back Quinshon Judkins up for a direct snap in the wildcat formation.
It’s something they’ve done frequently throughout the season, including when Dillon Gabriel was starting. Judkins has been their best offensive player, and it’s a play that’s worked for them before.
But in this game, at this moment, Sanders was on a roll, just completing a stretch over the final two drives in which he’d gone 9-of-10 for 109 yards.
Judkins got the ball and ran right, and it appeared that the running back was supposed to pitch the ball to rookie undrafted wide receiver Gage Larvadain running an end around behind him.
But instead, Judkins held onto the ball too long and had nowhere to go. Too late for the dump off, he tossed the ball back across the field in Larvadain’s direction, but the play was busted by that point and never stood a chance.
It’s a play the Browns have had in their repertoire for awhile, even going back to training camp. Judkins, of course, missed all of training camp and the first week of the season while his off-field legal issues played out.
After the game on Sunday, the rookie running back declined to speak to the media.
One of the players who knows Judkins best on the team, however, is fellow rookie running back Dylan Sampson. He offered some insight into the Ohio State product’s mindset after the loss. Sampson himself also had to bounce back from a bad play in the loss, a lost fumble in the fourth quarter that led to a touchdown.
“I think sometimes it’s just when you develop connections with players, I mean, he’s the type of person where sometimes you don’t need to say anything,” Sampson said. “I know that moment kind of hurt because it was almost like there is no next-play mentality with that play, but all you could do is come in the next day and you let everybody know that we got your back, the same way my teammates did with me.
“Nobody wants to mess up. We don’t do this intentionally. It’s going to happen, plays are going to be made. So now it’s about just adjusting and bouncing back this week. And Quinshon, we built that relationship where I know what it is with him and he knows what it is with me. So we lift each other up and we just keep making sure we ready to go mentally and physically.”
Of course, there were plenty of mistakes to go around after that loss. The run defense essentially collapsed against one of the worst rushing attacks. There were big special teams miscues, including a blocked punt and a muffed punt by Larvadain on a return attempt. For as well as Sanders played, there’s also the third quarter interception he would like back. Both that play and Sampson’s fumble led directly to scores.
But for many of the rookies, including Judkins, this is the first time they are experiencing the need to bounce back from such big mistakes like these.
“They’re going to be beating themselves up about it, especially because they might not get a lot of touches and whatnot, but you got to know that it’s easily fixable stuff, man,” veteran safety Grant Delpit said. “At the end of the day, the greatest players mess up as well, but the great ones also deliver when it’s time to deliver. So, it’ll be good for them to learn from, but we’re going to be better.”
Two missed conversions will linger in the public memory, but the Browns’ real story of this 2025 lost season will be in how their young playmakers respond.
For a team leaning so heavily on rookies, Sunday’s loss offered some of the harshest lessons yet — and, they hope, the kind that won’t need to be taught twice.
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