Browns' Jerry Jeudy refused to lateral on final play, conveniently hit his betting over instead

Billy Heyen

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Browns' Jerry Jeudy refused to lateral on final play, conveniently hit his betting over instead image

To be fair to Jerry Jeudy, hope was nearly gone.

But the Cleveland Browns' wide receiver had quite the bizarre ending to Sunday's Week 1 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals.

Cleveland's final play began at their own 3-yard line. They had no timeouts and were going to have to lateral their way all the way to the opposite end zone.

Joe Flacco fired a pass over the middle of the field to Jeudy.

But it didn't appear that Jeudy got the lateral memo.

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Instead, he juked one defender, then extended for all the extra yardage he could get.

When he was tackled, the game was over.

But astute observers on social media noticed something else:

Jeudy's betting total for over/under receiving yards was set at 65.5. And this play got him to 66 yards for the game.

Here, have a look:

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There's no telling if Jeudy had any idea whatsoever about the betting line. There's no way to accuse him of anything nefarious here.

Players in all sports find times where they end up playing for their own numbers. In blowouts or hopeless causes, their stats are pretty much all they have to shoot for.

Yardage can matter down the road in contract negotiations and in depth chart positioning.

Jeudy is the Browns' WR1, but he'd surely rather have 60-something receiving yards than 40-something receiving yards in the season opener. There's some pride to that, too.

But it happened in curious fashion on Sunday, that's for sure.

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Billy Heyen

Billy Heyen is a freelance writer with The Sporting News. He is a 2019 graduate of Syracuse University who has written about many sports and fantasy sports for The Sporting News. Sports reporting work has also appeared in a number of newspapers, including the Sandusky Register and Rochester Democrat & Chronicle