CLEVELAND, Ohio — Sunday was Browns kicker Andre Szmyt’s NFL regular season debut.
Will he get a second chance with the team that gave him that opportunity?
Unfortunately for Szmyt and Cleveland, two wide-right kicks helped seal a 17-16 Week 1 loss versus the division rival Cincinnati Bengals.
With the Browns trailing 17-16, Joe Flacco drove the Browns to the Cincy 12-yard line towards the Dawg Pound end of the stadium, setting Szmyt up for a potential game-winning, 36-yard field goal with 2:22 to play.
But Szmyt, who earlier had made a 45-yarder, sent the field goal attempt wide right. He sent an extra-point attempt wide right at the 7:20 mark in the third quarter too.
“I kind of rushed the approach on the first one so I was just trying to correct it on the second one,” Szmyt said after the game. “Unfortunately, I kind of pushed the second one, too. I know the wind was kind of going right to left. So I thought to play it more right. Obviously I pushed it.”
Teammates rushed to his defense after the game as well.
“Just looking at tape,” punter and holder Corey Bojorquez said. “What’d you do right? What’d you do wrong? All right. You know, move forward for him. I mean, it’s a long season. It’s the first game. Like, in the grand scheme of things, it feels like a lot, maybe in the moment, but we got four more months of this. You know what I mean?
On top of those missed kicks, the Browns also had two key drops, balls that popped out of the hands of Jerry Jeudy and Cedric Tillman and into the hands of Bengals’ DBs, leaving Flacco with two interceptions for the afternoon.
“The problem is, is that you forget this is a team sport sometimes because there’s such a spotlight on you because of certain points in the game and what happened,” Flacco said. “And what you’ve got to remember is that we’ve all been in a situation where we’ve all made mistakes before that have been a big part of costing us a football game. You’ve got to shake it. It’s not just on you.
“It’s a team sport. We’re all going to be in there and rally together. Nobody wants to be in that situation and not come up for your team, but we’ve all been there and can understand not doing it. I think if you’re able to kind of take that in, then you can use it to make you better in the future. So hopefully that’s what we can help him do with it.”
The defense, which locked down against Cincy in the second half and held them to only 7 yards of offense, got off to a slow start too and gave up a TD on the first drive of the game.
The defense also failed to create any takeaways, and the Browns lost the turnover battle 2-0.
“There were a lot of plays out there that could have been made that we shouldn’t have even allowed him to get to that opportunity,” cornerback Greg Newsome II said. “So he’ll be all right. We support him. Like I said, it’s Week 1. We got a lot of football left to play.”
The teamwork mindset is admirable, but it doesn’t mean the Browns are in any less of a difficult spot.
The Browns turned to Szmyt after parting ways with veteran Dustin Hopkins as they trimmed their roster to 53.
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Cleveland Browns kicker Andre Szmyt vs. Cincinnati Bengals, September 7, 2025
Hopkins wasn’t able to move on from his career-worst 2024 season, despite a career-best 2023 when he helped Cleveland make a playoff push and even earned a contract extension.
Money for Hopkins is still on their books. By cutting him after June 1, the Browns still have a $2.1285 million cap hit, per Spotrac, and save $720,000.
But few kickers would have survived a season like Hopkins’ 2024, when he made only 18 of 27 field goal attempts (a career-worst 66.7% mark) and also missed three extra-point attempts (17 of 20).
Instead of cutting their losses, the Browns went through the offseason hoping he would move past last year, and had Szmyt, officially in his first NFL season out of Syracuse, as a backup leg and feasibly for some camp competition.
When Hopkins missed a PAT and Szmyt made a game-winning field goal against the Rams in the preseason finale, it helped solidify Cleveland’s pivot to the untested Szmyt. But the Browns have insisted it was about his whole consistent body of work leading up to cuts, and not just that one preseason game.
But now, it doesn’t change the fact that they are once again left without a true plan B after failing to get different legs in this offseason and considering ending the Hopkins experiment sooner rather than later.
Head coach Kevin Stefanski would not elaborate when he was asked if the team will bring in competition or consider making a change after Sunday.
“I’m not there,” Stefanski said. “You know, like most type of things. You know, points are at premium obviously. So that’s frustrating. Andre’s had a really good camp. He’s done a nice job for us. So I’m not there.”
But one way or the other, a decision on Szmyt is coming.
And the Browns will need to decide if the debut was bad enough to also be his Cleveland finale.
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