Shedeur Sanders — Week 9: 297 Yards and an Overtime Answer

Shedeur Sanders took every snap against the Saints and threw for 297 yards: 19 of 31, two touchdowns, no interception, five sacks, plus 10 carries for 28 yards in a 23-22 overtime loss. Through the air he was worth +4.0 expected points added (EPA), what a play is worth given down, distance and field position, and his four completions of 30 yards or more were worth +15.7 by themselves.

The throw that answered came in overtime, down 23-16 with 1:11 left. Third and 7 at the New Orleans 39, he threw short right to Harold Fannin Jr., who went the distance for the touchdown: +4.6 EPA and 34.8 points of win probability, the estimate of each side's chance to win. He had moved the drive there with a 15-yarder to Denzel Boston on second and 14 and an 8-yarder to Boston on third and 4. Cleveland went for two, and his pass for Boston fell incomplete.

In regulation, down 9-6 with 5:33 left, he went deep right to KC Concepcion for a 64-yard touchdown on the first snap after a kickoff, +5.1 EPA. Boston's 60-yard catch to the 3 in the third quarter came one snap after his 11-yard scramble on third and 6. With 41 seconds left and down 16-13, he found Jerry Jeudy for 30 yards on third and 6, setting up the tying field goal.

The cost was the rest of it. Five sacks were worth -8.3 EPA, and his completion percentage over expected (CPOE), how often he completed passes against what their difficulty predicted, was -6.7. It was his first real workload of the season: across Weeks 1–8 he had thrown 3 passes for 2 yards.

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_Data via nflverse._