Deshaun Watson’s fourth-quarter comebacks have older Browns fans remembering the “Kardiac Kids” days of 1979 and ’80, when Brian Sipe led Cleveland to thrilling come-from-behind victories.
However, Watson and the AFC North-leading Browns are pulling off things that not even Sipe accomplished.
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Cleveland Browns running back Quinshon Judkins (10) dives past Tennessee Titans safety Kevin Winston Jr. (23) and defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons (98) to score a touchdown during the first half of an NFL football game in Nashville, Tenn., Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/John Amis)
Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson (4) celebrates as he leaves the field at the end of an NFL football game against the Tennessee Titans in Nashville, Tenn., Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/John Amis)
Cleveland Browns head coach Todd Monken talks to journalists at the end an NFL football game against the Tennessee Titans in Nashville, Tenn., Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/John Amis)
Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson (4) holds off Tennessee Titans safety Kevin Winston Jr. (23) on his way to scoring a touchdown during the second half of an NFL football game in Nashville, Tenn., Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/John Amis)
Sunday’s 27-24 victory at Tennessee made Watson just the third quarterback since the 1970 merger to have a game-winning drive in each of his team’s first five wins that season. Dallas’ Troy Aikman did it in 1990, followed by Detroit's Matthew Stafford in 2016.
The Browns also joined the 2016 Lions as the only teams since 1970 to record a game-winning score in the final four minutes of regulation or in overtime in each of their first five wins.
Even though Sipe led 11 fourth-quarter game-winning drives during his heyday — including seven in 1979 — and eight come-from-behind victories, he didn’t rally the Browns from double-digit deficits in consecutive weeks.
After beating Baltimore 13-10 on Oct. 18 after trailing 10-0, Cleveland came back from a 14-0 first-quarter deficit to defeat the Titans on another walk-off field goal by Andre Szmyt.
It's only the third time in franchise history — and first since 2007 — that the Browns have won two straight after trailing by at least 10 points.
Coach Todd Monken was more concerned on Monday about the slow starts than Watson’s fantastic finishes.
“I mean, that’s really more of a narrative than what we talk about here. I mean, the flip side is we haven’t started very fast,” Monken said. “But I’m proud of Deshaun, the way he’s battled back in games at times and found a way to take us down the field and give us a chance for victory and the whole offense in general. And there have been times our defense has made big stops. It’s given those opportunities.”
The close victories also have the Browns at 5-2 for the first time since 2020 and only the second since the franchise's return in 1999.
“We wish we had some blowout games. But again, it’s hard to do in this league,” Watson said after Sunday’s game. “With a young team and a young staff and everyone new, it’s actually good and can be beneficial for us in the long run that we have these types of games.”
Watson had his best numbers since being traded to the Browns in 2022, completing 25 of 36 passes for 308 yards. First-round pick KC Concepcion had a breakout day, catching eight passes for 129 yards, including 82 yards after the catch.
Tight end Harold Fannin Jr., who had been held in check in the previous two games, had six receptions for 91 yards, including a 36-yard catch to the Tennessee 19-yard line that set up the game-winning field goal.
The close wins have helped Monken build belief in his program in his first year as coach. Cleveland, though, will face a tough test on Sunday when it plays at Pittsburgh. The Browns haven’t won in western Pennsylvania during the regular season since a Sunday night game in 2003.
The Browns rushed for 183 yards and averaged 6.3 yards per carry. It was their most rushing yards since they gained 198 at Pittsburgh in 2023. Quinshon Judkins had a season-high 96 yards and scored two touchdowns. Dylan Sampson returned from a knee injury and provided a nice change of pace with 45 yards on six carries.
Better starts on defense. The Browns joined Washington in 2021 and Philadelphia in 2019 as the only teams since 1991 to allow 38 points on opening drives over the first seven games, according to TruMedia. Cleveland has allowed five touchdowns and a field goal while forcing only one punt on first possessions. The Titans game also marked the fourth time this season a Browns opponent has scored on its first two drives.
Cornerback Denzel Ward, listed as questionable after suffering a finger injury during Friday’s practice, picked off a pass for the second time in four games. He has 20 interceptions in his nine-year career.
Guard Zion Johnson drew three penalties. The two accepted calls stalled Browns drives.
Offensive tackle Tytus Howard is in the concussion protocol.
57 — Points scored by the Browns in the fourth quarter, sixth most in the league.
The Browns face Pittsburgh next Sunday, looking to sweep the season series against the Steelers for the first time since 1988. Cleveland has won the last two meetings, including Week 4 this season, when it rallied for a 27-24 victory.
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Cleveland Browns running back Quinshon Judkins (10) dives past Tennessee Titans safety Kevin Winston Jr. (23) and defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons (98) to score a touchdown during the first half of an NFL football game in Nashville, Tenn., Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/John Amis)
Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson (4) celebrates as he leaves the field at the end of an NFL football game against the Tennessee Titans in Nashville, Tenn., Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/John Amis)
Cleveland Browns head coach Todd Monken talks to journalists at the end an NFL football game against the Tennessee Titans in Nashville, Tenn., Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/John Amis)
Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson (4) holds off Tennessee Titans safety Kevin Winston Jr. (23) on his way to scoring a touchdown during the second half of an NFL football game in Nashville, Tenn., Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/John Amis)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is attempting to prosecute James Comey for what it calls a decade-old leak of classified information, an effort the former FBI director's lawyers immediately dismissed as invalid and outside the legal time limit for when the Justice Department can file a criminal indictment.
The allegations from the Justice Department were revealed Monday in newly unsealed court documents that shed light on a closed-door fight that represents an unmistakable escalation in the administration's targeting of Comey, a longtime critic and foe of President Donald Trump who has faced two other criminal cases since the Republican returned to the White House last year.
The effort to prosecute Comey is also part of a series of politically charged investigative actions the department has undertaken in the run-up to next week's midterm elections.
“Well, they’re back — again,” Comey said in a video statement Monday. “It would almost be funny if it weren't such an appalling abuse of the Department of Justice — one that we cannot become numb to. Nothing’s changed with me; I’m still innocent, I’m still not afraid of these people — and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary.”
The Justice Department said it had filed what's known as a “criminal information” to extend the statute of limitations for when it can permissibly bring an indictment.
"Filing a criminal information to toll the statute of limitations is a widely recognized practice in federal court and has been approved by multiple Circuit Courts of Appeals. This is an ongoing criminal investigation, and we will not comment further,” a department spokesperson said.
An information can be filed without the approval of a judge or a grand jury's finding of probable cause to a court. Comey’s lawyers made clear that they intend to fight the charges as invalid and barred by a 10-year statute of limitations.
“For the third time in little more than one year, the Department of Justice has attempted to charge Mr. Comey with a federal crime. Mr. Comey steadfastly maintains his innocence,” his attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, said in a statement.
The latest allegation concerns an October 2016 New York Times story related to a secret court order that required Yahoo to scan emails for messages potentially linked to a foreign terrorist organization. The story cited two government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the order from a judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that Yahoo was barred from publicly disclosing.
Federal authorities, including prosecutor John Durham, began investigating the disclosure in early 2017. Durham, who later investigated the FBI's conduct as it scrutinized potential ties between Russia and Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, wrote a classified memo in December 2018 recommending no criminal charges against anyone in connection with the disclosure, Comey’s attorneys said in a recent court filing.
In January 2019, the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia opened a second investigation of the same matter under the code name “Tropical Vortex.” But that investigation was closed without any charges filed in February 2020.
“Both times the Government determined that no charges should be brought against anyone. Now, ten years after the article was published, the Government filed an “Information” against Mr. Comey that was not approved by a judge nor issued by a grand jury. It purports to charge Mr. Comey with crimes that he did not commit,” Fitzgerald said.
Prosecutors in a newly unsealed filing said investigators found evidence that Comey “sought to correct misinformation which had appeared in the press by way of Reuters the day before” that New York Times story was published, directed his staff to speak to a journalist at the newspaper related to accuracy concerns “and thereby illegally transferred classified information.”
The criminal information was filed under seal on Oct. 5, 10 years after the 2016 story was published. “But,” Comey's lawyers said, “the applicable statute of limitations explicitly demands an indictment within 10 years of the offense; an information does not suffice.”
They have asked a judge to dismiss the information, a request that is still pending.
The first criminal case against Comey, filed in federal court in Virginia, accused him of having lied to Congress in 2020 but was dismissed by a judge who concluded that the prosecutor who brought the charges was illegally appointed. A separate pending indictment charges the former FBI director with threatening Trump through an Instagram photo of seashells in the numerical arrangement of “86 47,” a case Comey has sought to dismiss.
The prosecutions are part of a Trump retribution campaign that has even extended to Comey's daughter, Maurene, who was fired from her job as a Justice Department prosecutor in New York last year in a termination that a federal judge on Monday ruled was illegal.
Comey was the FBI director when Trump took office in 2017, having been appointed by then-President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and serving before that as a senior Justice Department official in President George W. Bush’s Republican administration.
But the relationship was strained from the start, including after Comey resisted a request by Trump at a private dinner to pledge his personal loyalty to the president -- an overture that so unnerved the FBI director that he documented it in a contemporaneous memorandum.
Trump fired Comey in May 2017 amid an FBI investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s campaign. That inquiry, later taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller, found that while Russia interfered in the 2016 election and the Trump team welcomed the help, there was insufficient evidence to prove a criminal collaboration.
The two men have been bitterly at odds ever since Comey's firing.
Comey in 2018 published a memoir, “A Higher Loyalty,” that painted Trump in deeply unflattering ways, likening him to a mafia don and characterizing him as “untethered to truth.” Trump, for his part, has repeatedly claimed that Comey should face charges for “treason” — an accusation Comey dismissed as “dumb lies” — and called him an “untruthful slime ball.”
The Justice Department has made a series of splashy moves in recent weeks , including a criminal complaint last Friday charging two former FBI officials with lying to Congress about their participation in investigations concerning Hunter Biden.
FILE - Former FBI Director James Comey speaks during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, Thursday, June 8, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
FILE - The U.S. Department of Justice logo is seen on a podium before a press conference, May 6, 2025, at the Justice Department in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
