Cam Ward vs Shedeur Sanders battle gets expected reaction in Titans’ Week 14 win over Browns

The Tennessee Titans upset the Cleveland Browns in the Ohio snow and cold on Sunday, and it was an offensive fireworks show nobody expected. Tennessee escaped 31-29 after it was clear early in the contest that neither of these defenses would be putting up a particularly stout fight. The headliners were fellow rookies Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders, facing off for the first time since being drafted first overall and all the way down in the fifth round respectively last spring.

National talk show hosts and general enjoyers of NFL soap opera narratives alike watched on with great interest to compare the two, despite the fact that quarterbacks don’t actually face one another. But that’s not stopping anybody from watching, checking the box score, and then making a comparison anyways.

Shedeur Sanders and Cam Ward weren’t asked to do the same things

Once the dust settled, Sanders’ stat line was pretty gaudy: 23/42 for 364 yards, 3-1 TD-INT, for 8.7 yards per attempt. He also had a rushing touchdown to boot. This performance made him the first Browns QB since 1950 to record 300+ passing yards, 3+ passing TDs, and a rush TD in the same game. Ward’s stat line, on the other hand, was very conservative: 14/28 for 117 yards, 2-1 TD-INT, for 4.2 yards per attempt. The internet saw this, and the usual suspects fired off their takes.

Here’s the reality of the situation from a 10,000ft view: Shedeur Sanders looked awfully promising today for an experiment QB in his third career start. That was strong stuff!

That can be true without having any bearing on Cam Ward, the franchise rookie in his 13th start, with many more datapoints and plenty of flash in a terrible situation this season to get excited for next year. They are contemporaries, but they are not equals right now. This game didn’t change that.

But let’s talk about the differences in this one game anyways, since that will be the topic of discussion. Those who are judging the future prospects of both rookies off this single game have a real unique, misrepresentative game for Cam Ward on their hands. Because for the first time in his entire professional career, he wasn’t asked to be a super hero!

The story of Ward’s rookie season has been something those of us in Titans media have said basically verbatim each week: well, either Cam has a good game, or this will be unwatchable. But in Cleveland, that finally wasn’t the case. The Titans ran the snot out of the football for the first time in a long time, and it’s what carried them to the win. They dictated the flow of the game. Tony Pollard’s career-best 161 yard, 2 touchdown day on the ground was spectacular, and it gave Ward the luxury of simply needing to manage the game.

This was good news for Ward because, lest we forget, the Browns are the 3rd-ranked passing defense in the NFL this year. Their run defense crumbling in the snow doesn’t change that. Even still, a couple of plays flip and Ward’s day feels and looks a good deal better. He needs to hit that deep pass up the right side to Chimere Dike that sailed wide. He was hot in the pocket and threw with a poor base, but I’m sure he would tell you he needs to hit that. And speaking of people who would admit they need to make a play, how about Van Jefferson dropping that gorgeous seam ball on third down? If he catches that perfect pass thrown under unblocked A-gap pressure, the numbers look different too. But that’s kind of the point here: Ward’s day feels like it was a play or two away from feeling a lot different. That’s usually a good sign that a performance wasn’t as bad or as good as it may have felt in the moment. Ward had a fine day, one that was unusual by this season’s standards, and that’s ok.

Sanders, on the other hand, was asked to be the super hero. He had to be, because in a surprising twist, the Titans run defense completely shut down RB Quinshon Judkins. He managed just 26 yards on 14 attempts. Sanders was Cleveland’s leading rusher in the game, and he’s not known for his mobility!

So he threw the ball all over the yard. Luckily, he had the benefit of facing the Titans’ 24th ranked pass offense. He was targeting the likes of CB1 Darrell Baker Jr. and relative newcomer Micah Robinson. But he still had to deliver the ball, and that he did.

It was exactly the kind of performance in a losing effort that I’d want to see if I were a Browns fan wondering what I have in Shedeur Sanders. Really all I’d be mad about was the monumental, foolish waste of the time the Dillon Gabriel Era was. Through three starts, Sanders looks like somebody the team could potentially factor into their future plans. And through 13 starts, Cam Ward is somebody the Titans are excitedly factoring into theirs.