Shedeur Sanders is the first Cleveland Browns rookie quarterback to win his first NFL start in 30 years.<\/p>\n
His next task? Trying to lead the Browns to two straight wins for the first time in two seasons.<\/p>\n
Coach Kevin Stefanski said on Monday that Sanders will get another start after he led the Browns to a 24-10 victory over the Las Vegas Raiders.<\/p>\n
\u201cNumber one job of quarterback is to win. So excited to get that first win under his belt and then next thing is improvement. And that\u2019s what young players do. Certainly, young quarterbacks do. You get one game better and that\u2019s just from working at it,\u201d Stefanski said. <\/p>\n
After struggling in his NFL debut against the Ravens, Sanders showed improvement on Sunday. He completed 11 of 20 for 209 yards with a touchdown and an interception.<\/p>\n
It was only the third time this season a Browns QB has thrown for more than 200 yards. <\/p>\n
Offensive coordinator Tommy Rees\u2019 game plan for Sanders had some similarities to what was employed for Joe Flacco and Dillon Gabriel. Thirteen of Sanders\u2019 attempts were under 10 air yards or behind the line of scrimmage.<\/p>\n
However, Rees wasn\u2019t tentative about letting Sanders throw it deep. Sanders was 2 of 5 for 91 yards on passes of at least 21 air yards, including a 52-yard connection to Isaiah Bond late in the first quarter.<\/p>\n
Sanders rolled right after being pressured by Maxx Crosby while Bond was able to get separation from Raiders cornerback Darnay Holmes.<\/p>\n
By comparison, Gabriel was 2 of 11 on deep balls in six starts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought communication was really good throughout the day with him. And then like you mentioned, the big plays down the field, obviously that first one to I.B. (Isaiah Bond) was very high degree of difficulty with that play,\u201d Stefanski said.<\/p>\n
Sanders\u2019 66-yard touchdown to Dylan Sampson on a screen pass and 52-yard completion to Bond are Cleveland\u2019s two-longest pass plays of the season.<\/p>\n
While avoiding sacks and eluding pressure was a problem during preseason games and against Baltimore, Sanders was sacked only once despite being pressured on eight of his 21 drop-backs.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst start for any young quarterback, you\u2019re always going to make sure the operation is how you want it, and I thought by and large was good,\u201d Stefanski said. \u201dThere\u2019s things that we can clean up and obviously that goes on all of us. <\/p>\n
\u201cAre there things that he can do better? Absolutely. We\u2019ve already talked about that with him. He has the mentality that he will make the adjustments to the speed of the game, make the adjustments to what people are giving us, to make those improvements.\u201d<\/p>\n
What\u2019s working<\/p>\n
The pass rush, which sacked Las Vegas\u2019 Geno Smith 10 times. That was the second most in a game in team history. DE Myles Garrett had three sacks while eight players had least half a sack.<\/p>\n
What needs help<\/p>\n
Doing a better job converting on third down. The offense was 3 of 12 against the Raiders after going 2 of 14 the week before versus the Ravens.<\/p>\n
Stock up<\/p>\n
With six games remaining, Garrett has already set the team record with 18 sacks. It is also the most by an NFL player after 11 games since sacks became an official stat in 1982. Garrett\u2019s 14 sacks in the past five games also surpassed Michael Strahan (12 1\/2 in 2001) for most in that span.<\/p>\n
Stock down<\/p>\n
RB Jerome Ford had only one carry for minus-3 yards and continues to be an afterthought in the offense. He has four carries for zero yards in the past five games and no catches in the past three.<\/p>\n
Injuries<\/p>\n
DT Adin Huntington (quad) and TE Brenden Bates (ankle) are expected to miss multiple games after being injured on Sunday,<\/p>\n
Key numbers<\/p>\n
13 \u2014 Road game losing streak snapped on Sunday at Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
8-34-1 \u2014 Total record since 1999 of quarterbacks when they make their first Browns start.<\/p>\n
89 \u2014 Tackles this season by LB Carson Schwesinger. The team\u2019s rookie record is 108 by Wally Rainer in 1999.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s next<\/p>\n
Cleveland is 2-3 at home this season going into Sunday\u2019s game against San Francisco. The Browns have won 8 of 10 at home against the 49ers, including the past four.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NFL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NFL<\/p>\n
Joe Reedy, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shedeur Sanders is the first Cleveland Browns rookie quarterback to win his first NFL start in 30 years.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-304879","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}