Fifty-one minutes in the visiting room at Raymond James Stadium, and then eleven minutes at the podium down the hall, after Cleveland beat Tampa Bay 54–14. Sixteen men answered questions. Most of them answered three or four and went to shower.
Sunday, September 20, 2026 · Raymond James Stadium, Tampa, Florida · 4:31–5:33 p.m. ET
The visiting room here is two rooms with a doorway cut between them, and the doors were opened to reporters at 4:31, about twenty-five minutes after the last snap. It was the first cold air anybody had been in since eleven in the morning. Three players were already dressed and two were still in pads.
The team made Shedeur Sanders and KC Concepcion available at the podium in the interview room down the hall rather than at their lockers, which is a change from Jacksonville. Concepcion went first at 5:04 and Sanders at 5:19. Everything below the second heading happened in there, with about thirty people in the seats and a Buccaneers logo on the backdrop that nobody moved.
This is most of what was said, in the order it was said.
Eight catches, a hundred and five yards, and the one over Zyon McCollum in the third.
That’s the one. That’s the one right there.
He was on my back hip the whole way down, so it ain’t a race no more at that point, it’s just who wants to go get it. I put my arm across him and got him behind me and then I went up. That’s a big boy corner too, he ain’t small.
Did you know you had both feet?
Yeah, I knew.
I ain’t look at the ref or nothing, I just got up and went to the huddle. They scored two plays later off that.
(Concepcion comes through the doorway from the shower side with a towel over his shoulder. Boston’s volume goes up considerably.)
KC. KC! Tell ’em who had a hundred first.
(Concepcion says something over his shoulder without stopping. Boston laughs at it for a while, then turns back and drops back down to where he was.)
My bad. Go ahead.
Both of you went over ninety. Two rookies.
That’s cool.
Me and him been in the same room since May. So, yeah. It’s cool.
You came out early in the fourth.
It was fifty-something to fourteen. I’d take me out too.
Fourteen carries for twenty-seven.
Yeah.
What was in there?
Fifty was in there.
Definitely the biggest problem I’ve had to run at since I got in the league. He don’t get moved and he don’t stay in one gap neither. You block him and he’s still there. I hit it back one time in the second quarter and he was already standing in the back door waiting on me and I’m thinking, how.
Defense got four picks though. Four. Y’all been over on that side yet? Go over there, they had a day.
The fumble on the second drive.
I had it and then I didn’t have it. It’s the second one I’ve put on the ground since I got here and I can tell you the week and the quarter of the other one.
Two straight games over a hundred degrees.
I’m done talking about heat. Ask me in Cleveland.
Rueben Bain was a first-round pick and he finished with nothing.
He’s strong.
That’s two first-rounders in two weeks and you haven’t given up a pressure yet.
Okay.
Is there anything from today you want back?
The run game.
Meaning what, specifically?
(He looked at the man who asked it, thought about it, and did not add to it.)
The run game.
(Four questions, twelve words.)
Vita Vea had six tackles for loss.
He did.
Twenty-nine carries for eighty-four. Second week where there was nothing inside.
Ask me about me. I’ll stand here and talk about me all night, I don’t care how long you want to go.
All right. You.
I was late out of my stance twice in the first quarter and he had my hands off me the rest of the afternoon. I don’t need the tape for either one of those.
What I’m not doing is putting somebody’s name in your notebook. Y’all have gone down this row asking that four different ways and everybody in here can hear you doing it.
Second straight week without much movement up front.
We’ll watch it Tuesday.
Ten tackles, six for loss, four hits on the quarterback.
He’s a good football player.
Anything you’d point at?
No.
(He stood up while the next one was being asked and went past the group to the training side.)
Fourteen points in eight minutes and then nothing for three quarters.
We were in a lot of man early. That was the plan and I liked the plan, we had a good week of work on it, and they hit two.
Then Coach Rutenberg came down off the top and we went off, and disguised it, and mixed the pressure in from depth. Which is not new. We’ve had that call since the spring and we ran it in Jacksonville too, we just weren’t in it as much.
And it was before the second quarter, not halftime. People are going to have that wrong tomorrow. It was four sentences on the sideline and then we went out and played the rest of the game in it.
How much of that is you at the line?
Some. Mike gives me two things and I pick between them off the formation, and if they motion I’ve got a third one. That’s the whole job.
Quincy talks more than I do out there anyway.
Eleven tackles, four for loss, two interceptions and four balls knocked down.
I had a good game.
I’ve never had two in one game. Not at UCLA either. The first one is Quincy hitting him as he throws and I’m the only one standing there. The second one, he never looked at me. I was in his throwing lane for a while before that ball came out and he threw it anyway.
I’ll take it. That was a good day.
They went 0-for-11 on third down.
I saw it on the board coming off. Zero for eleven.
Does that number surprise you?
Yes.
(He laughed once.)
Somebody usually catches a slant on you.
The first quarter.
Yeah.
A hundred and fifty-some yards in a quarter, the thirty-six to McMillan, and then the eighty-seven to Godwin on the first play after a punt put them on their own thirteen.
You don’t have to read me the numbers. I was out there for all of them.
The eighty-seven, I’m in man, I’ve got outside leverage on him and he goes through my face and I turn the wrong way. He’s been doing that to people for ten years. That’s me turning the wrong way, it had nothing to do with what was called.
They changed the coverage rather than taking you out.
That’s the coaches.
Did anybody say anything to you when you came off?
Lynch did. He said everything off now, top of the stem, and don’t look in the backfield. That was it. Then we went back out.
A lot of staffs sit a corner after a quarter like that.
Maybe.
(Pause. Nobody filled it, so he did.)
I’ve been in this eight years. I’ve had a whole season that was worse than that quarter and I was still starting in December.
The interception in the fourth.
It was a bad throw.
Do you feel like you got it back out there?
I don’t know what that means.
(He waited to see if there was another one, and when there wasn’t he said “all right” and went.)
Your first sack as a Brown.
Y’all got me at one now. Write it down, put it in the paper, one.
And four for loss. Four! In the run game, in a game where they was trying to run it to keep him off the field. That’s the one I want, that ain’t the sack one, that’s the one that’s hard.
They slid to you again for most of the first half.
They gon’ do that. That’s the whole season, that’s every week now.
Fifty-one had three for loss. Mike Hall. Three, and ain’t none of y’all wrote his name down all year. That’s what happens when they send two at me. Somebody over there is by hisself and today it was him, and he ate all afternoon.
Baker Mayfield was 16-of-32 with four interceptions.
He wasn’t comfortable one time. Not one.
And he a tough dude, he stood in there and took some, ain’t nobody over here saying nothing bad about Baker. He didn’t know where it was coming from. That’s not him. That’s our coaches, and that’s our film room on Wednesday and our film room on Thursday. It works or it don’t and today it worked.
You had four tackles for loss and Carson Schwesinger had four.
Forty-nine!
He’s twenty-three. Twenty-three years old with the green dot and two picks in a professional football game.
A lot of the questions in here have been about Darnell Savage.
I bet they have.
He was out there in the fourth quarter picking the ball off. Y’all was in here typing at halftime and he was out there in the fourth quarter picking the ball off. What else you want?
(He was told the buses were at 5:45.)
I know when the bus is.
Four takeaways.
Four in one afternoon, man. We had four all of last season. I said that number out loud in June and y’all wrote it down, so here it is again: four last year, and we got six in two weeks.
And the eleven third downs.
Eleven for nothing. I’ve never been part of that. I don’t think I’ve been on a defense that did that in college.
Now I got crack blocked on the second drive and put on the ground and they ran for eight behind it, so I’m in the first quarter too. I was way too far inside. That’s a rookie thing to do in year seven.
On the change out of man —
Go ask Carson, he’s got the dot. I do what the call says.
There have been a lot of questions in here about the boundary corner.
I’m not doing that one.
Next.
An interception in a second straight week.
Ball came to me.
They went at the other side of the field early.
I’m not answering that.
Is the zone easier for a corner?
It’s easier.
(Pause.)
For me it is.
Three hits on the quarterback and no sack.
Three, yeah.
You had him a couple of times.
I know how many I had.
He was getting rid of it in about two seconds all day, and I’m not getting there from where I’m starting. That’s fine. If he’s throwing it in two seconds it’s going to forty-nine.
Second week in a row without one.
Yeah.
Three catches in a fifty-four point game.
That’s what it was today.
Both rookies went over ninety.
Twelve’s got hands. And KC is going to be a problem in this league for a long time.
Are you telling them anything?
They don’t need much.
(He was dressed before the doors opened and he was gone inside two minutes.)
The extra point at the end of the half.
It got blocked.
What happened on it?
It got blocked.
Somebody will show me.
Seven touchdowns is a lot of kicks in that heat.
My leg’s tired. That’s a first.
When was the last time you scored?
I’d have to look it up.
Guess.
Twenty-two? It was Chicago. Somebody in here has it on their phone already.
Did you keep the ball?
Yeah. I’ve got three kids and one football, so I’ll figure that out later.
Seven catches for ninety-six, and forty-six of that came after you had the ball.
Forty-six? Okay, that’s — yeah, I like that one. That’s the number I want.
They played a lot of off on me after the first quarter, so it’s just catch it and go get what’s there. Them was the easy ones. Denzel had the hard ones.
You had one drop, on third down on the opening drive.
Third-and-four. I was running before I had it. I do that, I’ve been doing that since I was little, and Coach Jones is gonna have it up on the screen Wednesday with everybody sitting there.
He should. It was third down.
You lead the league in punt return average.
The whole league?
(He is told yes, through two weeks.)
Hold on. That’s — that’s crazy. I’m gonna text somebody about that on the plane.
I only got three today. They was punting it away from me by the second half, which, I’ll take that, that’s fine. Somebody told me that’s a compliment.
You’ve talked before about having a stutter, and there are people who follow you because of it. Do you hear from families?
Yeah. All the time now. Since the draft it’s been like every day.
It’s mostly the mommas that message me. They’ll send a video of they son reading something out loud, and I try to write everybody back but I don’t always get to everybody, so if I ain’t got to you, I’m sorry.
And I still got it, it ain’t like it went somewhere. It’s just I know when it’s coming now. So I w-, I wait, and then I say it. Like just then.
(He stops for a second. Nobody says anything.)
When I was little I wouldn’t say nothing in class. I’d take the zero. So if a kid see me up here and I get stuck and I finish it anyway and don’t nobody in here make a face about it, that’s good. That’s a good thing.
Okay, what else you got.
Seven catches, three carries and three returns in a hundred degrees. How do you feel?
Better than last week.
Anything about today you’ll remember?
The boat.
(Laughter.)
Nah, for real, when they scored the first one the cannon went off and I was on the bench and I came all the way up off it. I ain’t know it did that. Then it didn’t go off no more after that, so.
Twenty-six of thirty-five, three hundred and twenty-eight, two touchdowns.
Three touchdowns.
I ran one in too. Y’all keep saying two, it’s three. Say three.
Cleveland ran it twenty-nine times for eighty-four yards.
So who moved it?
Nah, that’s a real question. Four hundred and seventy-seven yards, fifty-four points, and we ain’t run for nothing all day. Somebody moved it. I ain’t gonna sit up here and be shy about what I just did, that’s corny to me. That was me today.
And it’s one sack. One. With fifty in there taking on two and three of ours every snap and me holding it to throw it down the field. One sack. Go count how many times I got hit standing up after I let it go.
You’re now first in the NFL in completion percentage, first in passer rating and first in yards per attempt.
All three. Say all three of them out loud, that’s the fun part.
Look, I been telling people what I was since the combine and before that. It ain’t new information to me. The only thing that changed is now it’s on film and y’all can go look at it on Monday instead of arguing about it.
Two games. I know it’s two games. I’m gonna be first in it in December too.
Mary Kay Cabot · cleveland.comYou threw it thirty-five times without a running game and you had to get the ball out. What was the answer when the run died?
Switzer. Travis had that ready before we ever got on the plane.
We got into a bunch of RPO stuff and quick game, and it’s not us giving up on running it, it’s the same run action with me keeping it in my hands. So the linebacker still got to honor Quinshon, he can’t just go get me, and now Harold’s sitting in there behind him. That was the whole second quarter.
And we could still go down the field out of it. A lot of teams get into that quick stuff and then they stuck in it.
The seventeen-yard throw to Denzel Boston in the third, over the corner.
I put that one where only he could get it and he still had to go do something crazy with it.
That’s a rookie, second round, and he boxed a starting NFL corner out like it was a rebound. He be doing that in practice to our own guys. Nobody believed me about him in August, and that’s fine, y’all can believe me now.
KC Concepcion had seven catches and forty-six yards after the catch.
KC.
He caught everything they threw at him and one they shouldn’t have. He’s twenty-one and he plays like he been here. I told him on the sideline in the third, I said you got to stop making it look easy ’cause they gonna start acting like it is.
Harold Fannin has five touchdowns in two games.
Harold.
The one before the half, he had a safety on top of him and I put it on his back shoulder and he took it and got in. That’s a two-second play. Everybody in the league runs that play. Ours works ’cause it’s him.
The one sack.
Mine. All the way mine.
Carsen was open on the swing the whole time and I’m sitting back there waiting on Denzel to come open on a dig because I wanted the big one. That’s me being greedy on second-and-six.
And I threw two today I got away with. The one to KC in the third quarter, that should have been picked, the safety was late and he read my eyes the whole way and he just didn’t make it. I know when I get away with one. I ain’t gonna stand up here at fifty-four to fourteen and pretend that was a good ball.
National reporterThey scored fourteen in eight minutes and it looked for a while like it could get away from you. What was said?
Nothing.
Y’all not gonna believe that but nobody said nothing. Coach came over on the bench after the eighty-seven and he asked me about a look he wanted to get to in the second quarter, that was the conversation, and then he walked off and went and talked to the defense. He wasn’t hot. He don’t get hot.
I be watching for it. All year I been waiting to see it and it ain’t happened yet.
Darnell Savage had a difficult first quarter and stayed on the field.
Why you asking me that? I was on the sideline with a wet towel on my head.
Go watch the fourth quarter, he got the ball. He been in this league longer than I been driving. I ain’t got nothing else for you on that one.
Carson Schwesinger had two interceptions and four tackles for loss.
Forty-nine is the best player on our team.
And I’m including me in that. Y’all can put that up however you want.
National reporterYou’re 2–0, you lead the league in three categories, and there are people on television who spent two years saying you couldn’t play. Where do you put yourself right now?
Right now? Through two weeks ain’t nobody playing better than me. That’s not a shot at nobody, that’s the numbers, you can go look them up on your phone while I’m sitting here.
Now, them boys been doing it ten, twelve years, and I got two games. I respect all of that, truly. Ask me in November and I’ma tell you the same thing though.
Cleveland leads the NFL in scoring at forty-four and a half a game.
In the league?
(He looks at the staffer at the side of the room. She nods.)
The Browns lead the league in scoring. Say that out loud in Cleveland and see what happens to somebody’s face.
Two road games, two blowouts, both over a hundred degrees.
It was hotter last week.
This one was worse though. Last week it was just hot, this one was wet-hot, my hands was slipping on the ball in the first quarter and I had to keep going to the towel between every snap.
Last one. Anything you’ll look at tonight?
The third-and-fours. We was five for thirteen and I ain’t happy about that at all. Fifty-four points and we’re punting twice, we’re just scoring so fast it don’t look bad.
(He starts to get up, then stops with a hand on the microphone.)
How many total touchdowns Harold got? Five?
(Somebody says five, and that it leads the league.)
Five. Two weeks. Legendary.
(He knocked twice on the table and left.)
Sixteen men spoke, between the two rooms, over about an hour. Six of them were asked some version of a question about the interior of the offensive line and none of the six answered it with a name in it. Five were asked about Darnell Savage, including Savage.
Mike Hall Jr., who had four tackles and three for loss, dressed at the far end and was on the bus before anybody got to him. Parker Brailsford was not made available. Ronnie Hickman spoke to two reporters for about forty seconds and is not in here. Dillon Gabriel, who finished the game 5-of-6 for 80 yards, answered one question about the last two drives and one about the flight.
Cleveland is 2–0 and plays Carolina at home on Sunday at one o’clock. Nobody on the seventy-eight-man travel party was listed with an injury. The plane left Tampa at 7:40 p.m.
Added Wednesday, September 23: Carson Schwesinger was named AFC Defensive Player of the Week. He was in a meeting when it was announced and found out from Jared Verse, who told the room.
