The Cleveland Browns lost to a bad New Orleans Saints team on Sunday. As a result, they lost important ground in a playoff race where they had a chance to keep pace. It’s a loss that everyone should have everyone feeling frustrated.
However, the thing that might be even more frustrating is people not being honest about what we saw on the field today. The former head coach of a division rival did exactly that following the game.
Bill Cowher, former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach and current NFL analyst, gave a lot of praise to Browns backup quarterback Shedeur Sanders for his effort against the Saints. So much so that he even called for Sanders to take over as the full-time starter.
"Shedeur Sanders should be the starter for this football team.
He's gonna be the future." - Bill Cowher pic.twitter.com/UN78KLHXxX
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) November 8, 2026
If you want to credit Sanders’ resilience, then I am on board with that. He competed the whole game and gave the team a chance to win. But if we are being honest about the quality of play on the field, Sanders wasn’t very good.
His fourth-quarter touchdown to KC Concepcion was on a ball that was very underthrown to a very open Concepcion. Fortunately, the rookie wide receiver was able to come back for the ball before reversing field and running nearly 30 yards for the score.
It was similar to the overtime touchdown to Harold Fannin. A two-yard pass that went for a touchdown after Fannin broke several tackles. It was a long touchdown pass that had very little to do with the passer.
Sanders also severely underthrew his long pass to Denzel Boston. Again in this situation, a rookie wide receiver was very open, but had to come back to bail out a bad pass. An accurate throw would have likely resulted in a touchdown, whereas instead the Browns were only able to kick a field goal after not being able to punch it in from the three-yard line.
Sanders played fairly well, with the caveat that he is a backup quarterback who was a fifth-round pick. But if you want to make him a starter based on what we saw Sunday, then that is just not an honest evaluation of how he played.
This article originally appeared on Browns Wire: Former Steelers HC believes Shedeur Sanders should start going forward
