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CLEVELAND — When Ravens outside linebacker Dre’Mont Jones saw safety Kyle Hamilton get up from sacking Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders and flex his wrist to the air, he knew what he had to do.

“It was hilarious. I had to join in on the party. I don’t know if you saw me behind him doing it because it was perfect timing,” he said, laughing at his own pun.

The Ravens gifted Sanders, who declined a chance to be drafted by the team, many “Welcome to the NFL” moments in his NFL debut: from sacks to an interception to third-down stops. And Hamilton’s mimicry of Sanders’ signature watch flex celebration drove the point home in a 23-16 win for the Ravens.

As the Ravens prepared to take on the Browns, they didn’t necessarily know they’d be facing Sanders.

The Browns have gone through multiple quarterbacks since training camp, including former Raven Joe Flacco, whom they traded to the Cincinnati Bengals, and current Ravens backup Tyler Huntley.

Sanders, who plummeted to Cleveland in the fifth round of the draft after many expected him to go in the first round, slowly moved up the depth chart through attrition, but Browns coach Kevin Stefanski was adamant that he believed in fellow rookie Dillon Gabriel.

Gabriel started the game and went 7-for-10 for 68 yards. The Browns had six first downs (one by penalty) and no third-down conversions with Gabriel, but they made three field goals.

When the teams returned from halftime, Gabriel did not.

With his teammate in the concussion protocol, Sanders walked onto the field, waving to the fans who greeted him with a standing ovation. They’d been calling for him to play, and here it was — against the team he told not to draft him because he didn’t want to sit behind Lamar Jackson.

Sanders completed his first pass, for 5 yards. It was, Stefanski said, his first rep with the starting offense since being drafted.

“It was a crazy moment,” Ravens rookie safety Malaki Starks said. “Everybody was going crazy, and I thought they got the first down.”

The Browns did not get the first down. Instead, Hamilton sacked Sanders and his first NFL series ended in a three-and-out and mockery of his signature celebration.

Things did not improve much for Sanders from there.

On the next series, he threw an interception to cornerback Nate Wiggins.

“I dropped into Cover 2, and he just threw me a good-luck charm,” Wiggins said with a little laugh. “And I had to catch it. Them be the harder ones to catch. Luckily, I caught it.”

After Sanders got a first down on the next drive — the team’s first third-down conversion of the game — cornerback Keyon Martin sacked him three plays later on the following third-down attempt. The undrafted rookie stopped him on the next third-down attempt, as well.

The next series ended when linebacker Trenton Simpson forced an intentional grounding on another third-down attempt.

While Sanders has a tendency to hold on to the ball, the Ravens’ pass rush had been effective all game. In addition to Jones feeling more comfortable in his second game with this defense after being acquired by trade from Tennessee, defensive coordinator Zach Orr continued to be creative with how he pressured the passer.

The Ravens sent a defensive back to blitz on a season-high 30.3% of drop-backs and ended with a season-high pressure rate of 39.4%, according to TruMedia.

“We were rushing, blitzing, covering our ass off,” Jones said. “That’s how we were affecting Shedeur. That’s how we can affect any quarterback, doing the things we were doing today.”

Sanders had a chance to tie the game, but the final three plays ended with an overthrow in the end zone, a pass breakup by cornerback Chidobe Awuzie and a fourth-down pass breakup by linebacker Roquan Smith.

Sanders helped the Browns get just four first downs and 64 yards. He completed four of 16 passes for 47 yards, with one interception, and rushed for 16 yards. The team did not score with him in.

“It’s a rookie at the end of the day,” said Smith, who added that he respects Sanders and Gabriel as players. “When you play a rookie in this league, you have to let them know that they are rookies. Like, that’s just what it is. Like, as a defense, a rookie should never be able to do crazy things on a defense, especially with the amount of guys we have here.”

Gabriel finished with a passer rating of 88.8. Sanders finished at 13.5 (on a scale from 0 to 158.3.)

As excited as Jones was to see Hamilton pull out that celebration, he said Sanders’ entrance into the game did not provide extra motivation for Baltimore’s defense.

“The momentum was already there,” Jones said. “Ro did a good job with just bringing us together and just relaying the message that everything is the same. We’re going to go out there and just kill.”

The Ravens held the Browns to 2-for-14 on third down, 0-for-1 on fourth down and 0-for-2 in the red zone. They limited the Browns to 187 net yards and an average of 3.5 yards per play — the Ravens’ lowest yardage allowed of the season and the Browns’ lowest yardage earned this season.

“It was a fun moment to have, just seeing the offense believe in us, letting us go back out there and seal the game,” Wiggins said. “It’s amazing. We live for stuff like that. I think we’re a defense that can stand up and do stuff like that.”