The Chicago Bears had very little issue shutting down Shedeur Sanders and the Cleveland Browns on Sunday afternoon.
The Bears rolled to a dominant 31-3 win at Soldier Field behind a strong outing from Caleb Williams. The Chicago now sits at 10-4 on the year after winning six of the last seven, and is very much on pace to make its first playoff appearance since 2020.
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Sanders struggled to get much of anything going for the Browns on Sunday. He went just 18-of-35 for 177 yards, zero touchdowns and three interceptions. Two of those interceptions came in the third quarter alone to allow the Bears to break the game wide open. The first pick came after D’Marco Jackson actually tipped a Sanders pass up in the air and then caught it himself deep in Cleveland territory.
While that’s not necessarily Sanders’ fault, it was in stark contrast to what Williams pulled off with DJ Moore just one play later.
Sanders threw another interception on their next drive while trying to get a deep pass to Jerry Jeudy in the end zone. It looked like an accurate throw but bounced off the hands of Jeudy and into the arms of Jaylon Johnson in coverage.
The Bears turned that into a touchdown, too, thanks to a 17-yard run from D’Andre Swift just nine plays later.
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Sanders threw one final interception in the loss, this time midway through the fourth quarter. He tried to lob up a ball to Harold Fannin Jr. but just left it completely short — which allowed C.J. Gardner-Johnson to come up with the easy pick.
That led to a Bears field goal, and eventually, the 28-point win.
To his credit, Sanders did get the Browns into scoring position on their final drive of the game. He completed eight passes — and only 18 on the day — and got them inside the 10-yard line. But the Bears sacked him twice to force the turnover and end the game.
Williams went 17 of 28 for 242 yards with two touchdowns in the win for Chicago. Swift had 98 yards and two scores on 18 carries, and Moore had two touchdowns and 69 yards on four catches. Sanders was the Browns’ leading rusher, too, with 24 yards on two carries. Quinshon Judkins had 21 yards on 12 carries. Isaiah Bond had 89 yards on two catches.
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The Browns, who have now lost three straight, will host the Buffalo Bills next weekend.
Myles Garrett closes in on sack record
The lone bright spot for the Browns? Myles Garrett is now just one sack shy of the NFL’s single-season record. Garrett recorded 1.5 sacks on Sunday, giving him 21.5 on the season. He needs one sack over the next three games to tie Michael Strahan and T.J. Watt for the record. Strahan set the record in 2002, when the NFL played a 16-game schedule; Watt tied him in 2021, playing in 15 of Pittsburgh’s 17 games that season.
What do the Browns do at QB moving forward?
Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski already said that Sanders will start for the team for the rest of the season. Sunday’s loss dropped them to 3-11, and they’ve already been eliminated from playoff contention for a second straight year. Keeping Sanders in there and getting him experience as a starting quarterback can only help him as a player, and the team doesn’t have much to lose at this point.
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But the Browns will have a quarterback question to answer yet again in the coming months, and there’s no clear answer.
While Sanders hasn’t been great — Sunday’s loss at Soldier Field was a good example of that — he has shown solid flashes. He threw for three touchdowns and more than 360 yards in last week’s game against the Tennessee Titans, for example, though the Browns still lost. But there are plenty of bad mistakes that he’s made while showing a lack of consistency. And, perhaps more importantly, the Browns aren’t winning games.
The Browns could turn back to Deshaun Watson, who was designated to return to practice earlier this month after tearing his Achilles twice. He’s not played this season, and likely won’t. But Watson, who the Browns gave a fully guaranteed $230 million contract, was an elite quarterback in the past before the injuries and an 11-game suspension. If he can bounce back and have a late-career resurgence, it’s easy to see a world where he’s the Browns’ quarterback for the next few years, at a minimum.
Or, the Browns could simply go in a new direction and opt to select a quarterback again in the NFL Draft in April. At 3-11, the Browns are projected to have a very high draft pick once again. There are plenty of options for them in this next draft class, too.
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Regardless of what route they take, it’s clear that Sanders hasn’t done enough yet to prove he’s the future with the Browns. Unless something changes drastically over the next three weeks, the quarterback issue in Cleveland will be spilling over into next season.
