The Browns vs Ravens score finished 13-10 to Cleveland at Huntington Bank Field on Sunday, October 18, 2026 — a Week 6 result that looks impossible against the game's first three quarters. Baltimore led 10-0, Cleveland managed just 46 total yards in the first half, and then the Browns scored 13 unanswered points, took the ball away from Derrick Henry in the fourth quarter, and won on Andre Szmyt's 37-yard field goal as time expired — a kick Szmyt only got to take because Baltimore jumped offside on his first, blocked attempt from 42 yards. Both teams are 4-2. Cleveland, 2-0 in the division, sits in first place in the AFC North this late in a season for the first time since Week 10 of 2014.
Cleveland had 46 yards at halftime — and somehow woke up in first place
CLEVELAND — Start with the ending, because the ending is the only part of this game that will be remembered. Tied 10-10, under a minute left, third-and-5 from Cleveland's own 38-yard line. Deshaun Watson, who had spent the afternoon being chased by a Baltimore defence that sacked him five times, stood in and found Jerry Jeudy for 33 yards to the Ravens' 29. A few snaps later Szmyt lined up from 42 yards to win it — and Baltimore blocked the kick. The stadium groaned. Then the flag was understood: the Ravens had jumped offside. Five yards closer, on an untimed down, Szmyt drove the 37-yarder through as the clock hit zero, and the Browns were in first place.
It was redemption inside redemption. Szmyt had missed from 48 yards with about 3:40 left, a kick that would have given Cleveland the lead — his first miss after 25 consecutive made field goals dating back to last season, according to NBC Sports. Tyler Loop had also missed a fourth-quarter field goal for Baltimore. In a game this short on offence, the kickers were always going to decide it; the surprise was that the deciding kick needed two attempts, a penalty, and no time on the clock.
How a 10-0 Ravens lead disappeared
Baltimore's start was exactly the script for a team missing its MVP quarterback: lean on field position, score early, make the backup's afternoon small. Tyler Huntley directed an 11-play, 66-yard touchdown drive to open the game, finishing it with a short touchdown pass to tight end Josh Cuevas on fourth down at the goal line. Tyler Loop added a 34-yard field goal on the next possession. Ten points, two drives, and a Cleveland offence that produced 46 yards in the entire first half. At half-time the Browns trailed 10-0 and, by any normal reading, were being handled.
The turn came in layers. Cleveland's first drive of the second half finally moved, and Szmyt's 48-yard field goal made it 10-3. The defence — already down Delpit, with linebacker Carson Schwesinger playing on a bad ankle — then produced the game's defining play early in the fourth quarter: Schwesinger stripped Derrick Henry, cornerback Tyson Campbell recovered at the Baltimore 35, and the Browns' patchwork running game did the rest. Audric Estime, who joined the team only this week, capped a seven-play drive with a 2-yard touchdown run that tied the game 10-10 with 8:33 remaining. Estime and Jaleel McLaughlin, filling in for Judkins, combined for a ground game that was modest on paper — Cleveland rushed for 78 yards — but physical exactly when Baltimore's defence expected pass.
From there it became a contest of mistakes. Loop missed. Szmyt missed. Baltimore went three-and-out when one first down might have ended it. And Watson, 16 of 26 for 164 yards with 29 rushing yards on eight carries, saved his best drive for last: 10 plays, 62 yards, the Jeudy catch as its centrepiece, and the walk-off kick as its punctuation.
The numbers behind Browns 13, Ravens 10
Read the box score cold and Baltimore's loss looks stranger still. The Ravens outgained nobody by much — 235 total yards to Cleveland's 237 — but they led for more than three quarters, committed the game's most damaging turnover, and finished with 13 first downs and seven punts. Huntley was efficient without being dangerous: 19 of 31 for 165 yards and the touchdown to Cuevas, plus 28 rushing yards. Zay Flowers caught six passes for 66 yards. Henry, the player Baltimore's whole late-game plan is built around, was held to 58 yards on 17 carries by a Cleveland front that was supposed to be the battered unit — and his fumble is the moment the game changed hands.
Cleveland's defence deserves the headline the kick will steal. Schwesinger finished with 13 combined tackles on a bad ankle and forced the Henry fumble. The Browns lost Delpit in the first quarter and still held Baltimore scoreless for the final three quarters and change — no points after Loop's first-quarter field goal. Baltimore's defence was nearly as good: five sacks of Watson, Kyle Hamilton with seven solo tackles and three tackles for loss, Jaylinn Hawkins with eight tackles. Two good defences, two limited offences, and a division lead decided by an offside flag on a blocked kick. That is AFC North football in its purest, ugliest form.
Why this matters
First place in mid-October is a modest prize — unless you are Cleveland. NBC Sports and theScore both noted the same milestone: this is the latest in a season the Browns have held first place in their division since Week 10 of 2014. A franchise that has spent a decade as the division's punchline now owns the AFC North's best divisional record (2-0), the head-to-head win over Baltimore, and — as they showed in September's 27-24 Thursday night win over Pittsburgh — a habit of winning exactly the kind of close, low-scoring divisional game it used to lose in the final two minutes.
For Baltimore, the concern is not the standings — 4-2 with Jackson's return expected is hardly a crisis — but the shape of the loss. The Ravens scored on their first two possessions and then punted seven times, missed a field goal, fumbled in their own territory, and jumped offside on the game's decisive play. Ravens Wire also flagged a late exit by starting left tackle Ronnie Stanley as an added worry. Without Jackson, Baltimore's margin for error is thin; Sunday showed what happens when every small error lands in the same afternoon. Huntley played well enough to win a game his team led 10-0. The team around him did not finish it.
There is also a quieter story in Cleveland's winner-take-all kicking game. Szmyt has now decided two divisional games this season with late field goals — the 56-yarder against Pittsburgh and Sunday's 37-yard walk-off — and a Browns team built on defence and field position needs exactly that reliability. His one miss on Sunday, snapping a streak of 25 straight makes, nearly cost Cleveland the game. His response to it won the game instead.
What happens next
Cleveland travels to Tennessee next week to face the Titans, carrying a 4-2 record, first place, and a defence that has allowed 13 or fewer points in the second half of its divisional games when it matters most. The questions travel with them: Delpit's concussion, Judkins' ankle, and whether an offence that gained 46 yards in a half can keep asking its defence to win games in the fourth quarter. Baltimore returns home to face Cincinnati in Week 7, also at 4-2, with Jackson's ankle, Stanley's status, and a suddenly real divisional race to manage. The rematch between these two, later in the season in Baltimore, now looks like it could decide the AFC North — a sentence nobody expected to write about a Browns team in October. For more NFL coverage, see Signal Post News' NFL Week 3 roundup.
Sources
NBC Sports / Pro Football Talk, "Browns move into first place with 13-10 victory over Ravens" (October 18, 2026) — Szmyt's 37-yard winner as time expired, his missed 48-yarder and streak of 25 consecutive makes, the Henry fumble and Estime touchdown, Jeudy's 33-yard catch, Watson and Huntley stat lines, first place this late for the first time since 2014, Week 7 fixtures. The Score, "Browns edge Ravens to move into 1st place in AFC North" (October 18, 2026) — the initial winning attempt blocked, with Baltimore called offside, and the 2014 Week 10 milestone. Akron Beacon Journal, live coverage and "4 things that stood out" (October 18, 2026) — the offside on the 42-yard try giving Szmyt the untimed 37-yard attempt, Delpit's concussion, Schwesinger's forced fumble and 13 tackles, Judkins' absence and the McLaughlin/Estime running game. USA Today Ravens Wire, "Ravens blow a 10-point lead, fall to Browns on a walk-off field goal" (October 18, 2026) — Baltimore's drive-by-drive account, team totals, Hamilton and Hawkins defensive lines, Stanley's late exit. ClevelandBrowns.com official game recap, "Browns 13, Ravens 10" (October 18, 2026) — official confirmation of the final score, the winning drive, and Cleveland's first-place standing. Sportradar game listing — quarter-by-quarter scoring (Baltimore 10-0-0-0; Cleveland 0-0-3-10) and conditions at Huntington Bank Field.