BALTIMORE — The Browns third-string quarterback, who was inactive and didn’t play in a 41-17 loss, talked in the locker room on Sunday afternoon.
OK, not to get too meta here, but he was asked to talk. He didn’t just decide to talk.
He was asked to talk because a report came out on Sunday morning that Shedeur Sanders told the Ravens, who were planning to select him No. 141 overall — three picks before the Browns traded up to acquire him — not to pick him because he wanted to go somewhere he could potentially play sooner.
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When a player is the subject of a report like that, getting a response from him is normal, even after a loss like that.
So it was normal but it also wasn’t because when does an inactive third string quarterback ever have to talk after a game?
While he was talking, head coach Kevin Stefanski was facing questions about whether he was considering a quarterback change. The rookie quarterback who was active for this game, Dillon Gabriel, relieved Joe Flacco for the Browns’ final possession and led a touchdown drive.
That wasn’t all on Sunday.
The highlights of pregame warmups was watching the Browns’ first-year kicker, Andre Szmyt. He was trying to bounce back from a game where he missed an extra point and a field goal that cost his team an opening-week win. His pregame successes this week were well-documented on social media.
He made both his extra points and his lone field goal attempt, a 38-yard field goal. The fact that’s significant — an NFL kicker doing perfectly normal things NFL kickers do — is also part of all of this. His game didn’t merit him being a story, but here we are.
All of this happened around the Browns getting their doors blown off by their division rival, who was celebrating the 30th anniversary of leaving Cleveland to move to Baltimore. There was even a Modell (John) in attendance on Sunday.
Browns fans and edge rusher Myles Garrett were feeling about the same way around 4:30 p.m. on Sunday.
“This (expletive)’s embarrassing,” he said.
Browns lost seasons are nothing new, but a season shouldn’t feel lost after two weeks.
This season isn’t lost — no one gets eliminated after two weeks — but it’s teetering. The 2-0 Packers are coming to Cleveland on 10 days rest next week and then it’s off to Detroit in Week 4. The Browns have to figure out a way to right the ship quickly against teams who won’t make it easy.
The Browns outgained their opponent and won time of possession for the second consecutive week, but this week was different. The Browns weren’t the better team on Sunday, even when their defense was making life hard on Lamar Jackson and the Ravens.
A week ago, the offense was efficient and controlled the ball against the Bengals, but was it the offense or was it the defense they were facing?
The Bengals gave up 400 yards of offense to the Jaguars while the Browns offense appeared stuck in mud for much of the afternoon. That probably means something.
Next week they face a Packers team that has allowed less than 250 yards in each of their first two games and has given up 97 rushing yards this season.
So, no this doesn’t get easier.
Sunday felt chaotic in a way that late-season games in playoff-less seasons feel chaotic. Unlike those late-season games, the Browns are still starting their hand-picked quarterback and they’re relatively healthy.
The Bengals made Browns fans feel comfortable with some areas that didn’t merit it after Week 1 and it’s easier today to chalk that up to just general Browns-Bengals weirdness.
The lack of playmaking on offense was evident against Baltimore. The depth in the secondary was exposed. The run game was better but still needs work.
There was weirdness all around but, most concerning, there was the feeling of chaos.
Outside noise happens to all teams and everyone falls victim to the national insider Sunday morning news dump sometimes. The Browns were a frequent target of it during their 1-31 days.
Maybe it’s just the left over “here we go again” reflex developed those two seasons, but it all feels a little too early to be asking third-string quarterbacks whether they told a team not to draft them and wonder if the leash for Flacco got a lot shorter on Sunday.
It wouldn’t make sense to bench Flacco now, but another game like Sunday’s could accelerate the timeline even more. The Browns travel to Detroit and then London to play the Vikings and return home to face the Steelers in Pittsburgh — the Steelers will be coming off their bye — so there’s no soft landing for Gabriel. But if Flacco is going to take sacks and turn the ball over — and he probably will against Green Bay’s defense — the patience of the fan base and locker room will wear thin. If the Browns spend too much more time with a zero at the front of their record, it becomes increasingly inexcusable to not make changes.
There’s no easy answer to this and if the Browns are going to take time to figure things out — if they figure anything out at all — it would be nice to do it in relative anonymity. That didn’t happen this week.
Sunday had one of those “here we go again” feels to it. The challenge for Stefanski and his team is to stop it from happening again.