Browns vs. Titans Week 7: Deshaun Watson Engineers Another Game-Winning Drive as Andre Szmyt Walks It Off

Tony Pollard's third touchdown and Joey Slye's extra point tied the game with 58 seconds left, and Tennessee had all the momentum. Then Deshaun Watson got the ball back. Four plays, 55 yards, one 36-yard catch-and-run by Harold Fannin Jr. and a 32-yard Andre Szmyt field goal as time expired later, the Cleveland Browns had beaten the Tennessee Titans 27-24.

If this feels familiar, it should. It was Watson's fifth winning drive in the fourth quarter this season, per the AP, and Szmyt's second straight walk-off kick. Cleveland is 5-2 with five wins in its last six games and still on top of the AFC North. Tennessee fell to 1-6.

Game Flow: From 14-0 Hole to Walk-Off

The Titans came out swinging like a team tired of losing. Pollard broke a 36-yard touchdown run on the opening drive, and after Cor'Dale Flott picked off Watson, Pollard scored again from 10 yards out. 14-0, and Tennessee had its best start to a game all season.

Cleveland steadied fast. Quinshon Judkins ripped off a 30-yard run, his longest of the season, and scored from 5 yards on the next play. Then the defense delivered the swing of the half. Pollard was ruled down just short of the goal line, and the Browns stuffed him on fourth-and-goal. "We've got to be able to push it in from the inch-yard line," Robert Saleh said afterward.

The second quarter got weird. Anthony Hill Jr. stripped Fannin after a catch and Tony Adams recovered for Tennessee, but on the very next play Denzel Ward picked off Cam Ward. The Browns turned that into an eight-play, 78-yard drive, Judkins scored from 6 yards to tie it, and Szmyt hit a 28-yarder as the half ended for a 17-14 lead.

The third quarter was a scoreless grind. Tyson Campbell forced a Carnell Tate fumble that Ronnie Hickman recovered, and Szmyt clanked a 43-yarder off the right upright right around the start of the fourth. Slye's 29-yarder tied it at 17 with 8:41 left. Watson answered with a 71-yard drive and finished it himself on a 9-yard run with 4:34 to go. The Titans needed 11 plays and a fourth-and-8 conversion to Elic Ayomanor, but Pollard punched in a 1-yard score to tie it at 24. Fifty-eight seconds was plenty.

Star Performances: Watson, Concepcion and Judkins

Watson finished 25 of 36 for 308 yards with an interception, plus 19 rushing yards and the go-ahead touchdown. Per the Browns, it was his first 300-yard passing game with the team, and he became just the third quarterback since the 1970 merger to lead a game-winning drive in each of his team's first five wins of a season. On the final march he went 3 for 3 for 50 yards.

"Being in this league for 10 years now, I understand that a lot of games are going to come down to that, if not every game," Watson said.

Rookie KC Concepcion was the best player on the field in the first half, catching all eight of his passes for 129 yards before the break, both career highs. He added an 18-yard run on the go-ahead drive, bouncing off tacklers like a pinball with a 24th-overall-pick price tag. "I play this game with so much heart and so much effort," Concepcion said.

Judkins ran for 96 yards and two touchdowns on 17 carries, and the Browns' 183 rushing yards were a season high. Fannin caught six passes for 91 yards, including the one that mattered most.

For Tennessee, Pollard was a problem all day: 25 carries, a season-high 129 yards and three touchdowns, which tied his career high. Cam Ward went 20 of 31 for 181 yards with no touchdown passes.

The Turning Point: A Missed Flag and a Short Kick

On the decisive drive, Watson found Fannin for 36 yards to set up the winning kick. The AP reported that officials missed an apparent false start by the Browns on the play. Asked whether the officials missed it, Saleh said he'd have to look at the video, then added: "Live, I think they did, yeah."

That is a brutal way to lose. But the Titans had chances long before that snap, from the inch-line stuff to the Fannin fumble they handed right back on the very next play.

There was also a sideshow nobody will forget. Titans punter Tommy Townsend hurt his knee late in the second quarter, so Slye moonlighted as the punter, getting bailed out once by a Cleveland 12-men penalty and booming a 42-yarder on his first NFL punt. A kicker doing punter cosplay is peak chaos football.

Stats That Matter

• 491: Cleveland's total yards, its most in a game this season per the Browns.
• 7.4: Browns yards per play, against Tennessee's 5.2.
• 5: Watson's winning drives in the fourth quarter this season, per the AP.
• 65: Consecutive games without back-to-back wins in the same season for Tennessee, tying the 2014-18 Browns for the most, according to Sportradar via the AP.

What It Means: AFC North Showdown Next

The Browns are 5-2, opened a three-game road swing with a win and head to Pittsburgh next Sunday to face a Steelers team that is also 5-2. Cleveland beat Pittsburgh 27-24 on Oct. 1 on a 56-yard Szmyt field goal with 10 seconds left, so this rematch has real teeth. First-year coach Todd Monken has a quarterback who keeps delivering in crunch time. "He has something in him to be able to make plays when it counts," Monken said.

The Titans are 1-6 and headed to Cincinnati, and the irony is cruel: they just tied a futility mark set by the Browns, and Tennessee's streak is now guaranteed to reach at least 66 games. Right tackle JC Latham refused to take comfort in the rushing numbers. "The most important stat is a win," he said.

Closing Take: Clutch Is a Habit

Five wins, five game-winning drives. At some point, it stops being luck and becomes a personality. Watson and Szmyt have turned the final minute into Cleveland's favorite part of the game, and Monken summed up the vibe: "Unbelievable team win."

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Postgame quotes as reported by the Associated Press and ClevelandBrowns.com.