Cleveland Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski admitted that losing to the Minnesota Vikings in the final minute of a compelling NFL International Series game in London stung mostly because of the errors his side made.

The Browns, calling Tottenham Hotspur Stadium ‘home’ for the weekend, led narrowly at the half after the two sides had exchanged first quarter touchdowns, but subsequently found themselves in a nigh-on impossible position after Jordan Addison put Minnesota back in front with less than 30 seconds remaining on the clock.

“[We’re] obviously extremely disappointed to not come away with the win, [but] we need to do a better job closing out,” he told the assembled media after the game. “That’s an offensive thing, defense, special teams, coaches, players, you name it… We’ve got to come away and be at our best in those moments, and we were not. And that’s the disappointing, frustrating part for me.”

Cleveland were unlucky to have a long Quinshon Judkins touchdown called back for a penalty at a time when they were poised to put daylight between themselves and their opponents after the break and, save for debutant QB Dillon Gabriel’s second career touchdown pass, to David Njoku, the Browns failed to add to their tally in the second half.

“We didn’t get into very many advantageous down-and-distances,” Stefanski explained. “We ended up in too many third-and-longs. There were penalties. We just have to be better — and have to score some points.

While Gabriel succeeded in putting more points on the board than his side had been averaging under veteran Joe Flacco, Stefanski accepted that there were going to be rookie errors of judgement in the former Oregon player’s game, nd preferred to focus on other areas when it came to analysing the outcome.

“Again, it’s probably premature to grade it in those type of things,” he said, his answers to questions getting progressively shorter as the media period went on. “There were some good things, some rookie things to certainly clean up. We just have to be cleaner. I didn’t get a look at some of the post-snap [penalties], but they were costly. There were some plays, those were yards that came back.”

Stefanski also refused to single out his defense for blame, as the fearsome group failed to live up to their previous high standards and, despite creating two turnovers, could not exert enough pressure on Vikings back-up Carson Wentz to put him off his stride.

“I’m just disappointed for the team,” the head coach reiterated. “We expect our guys to go do their job — again, all of us collectively, players, coaches — and we just didn’t come through in that moment.

“Obviously, you give credit to the Vikings, give credit where credit is due. They won the game. We’re disappointed that we didn’t do the things necessary to win that game, but you’ve got to give them credit.”