The game started like a tug-of-war between two teams too stubborn to give ground. Joe Burrow found Noah Fant for his first touchdown. Chase Brown punched one in early. Kevin Stefanski’s squad answered with help from Bengals penalties and an eventual Joe Flacco strike. Both defenses traded sacks, both quarterbacks threw picks, and by the late third quarter, Cleveland even held a 16-14 edge.

Then mistakes stacked up. Flacco’s pass got bobbled and intercepted twice, giving Cincinnati momentum. Evan McPherson drilled his kick to tilt the scoreline 17-16. The Browns clawed back downfield in the fourth quarter, close enough to change the ending. All they needed was one steady foot to walk out as winners. Instead, the season opener ended with silence you could feel in your teeth. And the player that stood out didn’t even step on the field.

Shedeur Sanders, who didn’t even play in this one, walked off with the most memorable gesture of the night. Andre Szmyt wore the “villain” tag the moment the ball hooked wide. Nobody wants that role, but somebody always has to own it. Sanders saw it play out and walked over, hand extended, dapping up Szmyt on the sideline. It didn’t fix the scoreboard, but it showed the kicker that not everyone was ready to bury him under headlines.

Kevin Stefanski summed up the loss at the postgame presser, “Very, very disappointing to come away with a loss in that game. Can’t be minus two versus a good football team. And that’s really the story of the football game. Tip balls and we gotta play cleaner.” Clearly, that missed field goal and extra point swung the entire outcome. In a one-point game, those mistakes don’t just sting; they decide winners.

It was the sickest feeling imaginable. One decision, one swing of the leg, and it hurt an entire locker room. A 36-yard attempt during the 4th quarter from Szmyt that never bent back, sailing wide right with the game in reach. Center Charley Hughlett delivered the snap, Corey Bojorquez set it clean, but the kick fell short. And in that chaos stood Sanders, making a small moment matter after the big one slipped away. But Stefanski wasn’t letting this one go.

Kevin Stefanski points to missed kicks

Kevin Stefanski, though, didn’t sugarcoat things in the postgame. He divided the burden and responsibility, but also pointed out that the team had to do better. “Now, there’s 1,000 things that we can do better from a coaching staff, from a player’s standpoint, but we have to do a better job securing that rock.” But he then also put some blame on that last missed field goal.

He admitted turnovers and tipped passes played a role, but his voice hardened when he circled back to special teams. “We obviously missed a field goal, missed an extra point. Those are points in these type of games that you have to come away with. So it hurts when you feel like you’re doing some good things,” Stefanski said. He wasn’t wrong. In games like this, one kick writes the ending. Cleveland will try again next week, but Szmyt will hear that thud in his sleep.

That’s where Stefanski left it. The Browns get a divisional rematch right away, forced to confront their flaws without delay. The Bengals had already overcome the ugly Week 1 curse, snapping years of slow starts. Cleveland had the game right where it needed to be, yet watched the script flip on a single swing. Sanders gave support in the aftermath, but Stefanski’s message rang louder: the Browns can’t keep writing their own losses.