The Cleveland Browns entered their second preseason game hoping to find clarity in the quarterback competition between Deshaun Watson and Shedeur Sanders. They didn’t get it. Cleveland fell 31-7 to the Buffalo Bills on Saturday, and coming out of the blowout loss, coach Todd Monken would not guarantee he’ll name a starter on Monday.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise given how the two quarterbacks performed to this point through training camp. 

Shedeur Sanders was the better quarterback on Saturday

Sanders played the first half and looked strong for the most part. He went 9-of-11 passing for 74 yards and a touchdown pass to Luke Floriea, along with one interception on a ball that should have been caught but was slightly behind the intended receiver. Sanders wasn’t perfect, but he was the best quarterback on the field Saturday.

Watson, on the other hand, played the third quarter and went 5-of-12 for just 36 yards with one bad interception on a pass he sailed across the middle. Cleveland hasn’t seen Watson go deep much this preseason, and that throw into a Bills defender’s hands showed perhaps why. Watson was booed off the field on multiple drives. It was not a great day for him.

Todd Monken won’t commit to naming a starter

Coming out of Saturday’s loss, Monken addressed the media after the game and would not commit to naming a starting quarterback on Monday.

“I mean, at some point, I’m saying it kind of jokingly, like at some point, we got to get that guy the reps,” Monken said of naming a starting quarterback. “So I’m not gonna paint myself into a corner. You guys know. I mean, optimally, you’d like to have given a player all of the reps, right? And you know who the one is. And we’ve done it as best we could as a staff, trying to work through this, right? 

Like at any position, and this is just one part of it, just like Thursday was, and we’ll watch the tape tomorrow because all I got a chance to do was watch it like you guys did, and I was looking at the surfaces, and everybody had a hand in it, and I already know looking at it and watching at it, we had too many issues with us that had nothing to do with them.”

Monken’s comments point to problems beyond the quarterback position. The Browns scored just seven points and managed only 194 total yards against Buffalo’s 368. The offensive had overall execution issues that had nothing to do with which quarterback was under center at times.

Browns face Patriots in final preseason game Thursday

Cleveland now heads into the final week of the preseason with the quarterback decision still hanging. The Browns play the New England Patriots on Thursday in the preseason finale. Given the way Monken spoke Saturday, there’s a real chance this competition goes all the way through that third preseason game before a decision is made.

Time will tell whether Sanders’ strong showing or Watson’s continued struggles tip the scales before the regular season arrives.