Browns Defense Is Best We’ve Seen

If Sunday’s win over San Francisco doesn’t convince people that the Cleveland Browns have a good team, we don’t know what will.

We’ve heard people saying Niners’ QB Brock Purdy isn’t a very good QB, but they weren’t saying that the previous game when they walloped Dallas 42-10. Such is the life of a Browns’ fan, even when they are good, they can’t just admit it.

The critics of Kevin Stefanski also are forced to put a sock in it right now. The “too cerebral”, “non-emotional” coach had his football team ready to play a superior opponent without their starting quarterback and All Pro running back, and All Pro guard.

He had a good game plan, stuck to it, and defeating a 5-0 football team, the first time Cleveland defeated an undefeated team with five or more wins since 1969!

We say that knowing the next time the Browns lose a game, it will be entirely the fault of Stefanski. Such is being a football fan in Cleveland.

And we are sure we will hear some people saying perhaps Cleveland doesn’t need Deshaun Watson after all, because they defeated a quality opponent without him.

However, let’s talk about the defense. We are ready to say this is the best defensive unit the Browns have had since we started following the brown and orange in 1965.

Jim Schwartz’ unit has allowed just 1002 yards in their five games, the first time any unit has allowed so few in 50 years. And because of that, the Browns are 3-2 today despite not winning the turnover battle in any of the five games they’ve played to date.

Last season, we wondered (we weren’t alone) why the Browns played so much zone pass defense when they drafted several cornerbacks who exceled in man-to-man coverage during their college careers. This season, we are seeing that was a huge mistake.

To us, that’s the problem with coaches who have a “system”. That “system” is all they know how to teach and coach. Which pretty much is the opposite of what we feel coaching should be, which is looking at the talent at hand and getting the most out of it.

Yes, GM Andrew Berry added a lot of talent on the defensive line, but perhaps that was at Schwartz’ request. We often said in the past it seemed like the plan was if Myles Garrett can’t get to the quarterback, they needed to rely on the zone coverage.

Schwartz didn’t want to depend on just Garrett. He wanted a bunch of players with the ability to get to the passer. Last season, Taven Bryan was second on the team with three sacks. In 2023, Ogbonnia Okoronkwo already has 2.5 and LB Sione Takitaki has two.

Keep in mind that Za’Darius Smith doesn’t have one yet, and Shelby Harris has just a half sack. You know they will get on the board soon.

Opponents are converting just 23.1% of third downs against the Browns’ defense, which is amazing. The next best rate? Atlanta is holding their opponents to just 31.1%.

Also, opponents have ventured into the Cleveland red zone just nine times, also the lowest in the NFL.

Stefanski told his team in the locker room after the game that the Browns need to start stacking wins and he is 100% correct. They have to follow up a great win over San Francisco by going to Indianapolis and beating a rebuilding Colts’ team.

And stop turning the ball over.

The Browns’ World Isn’t Ending Folks

We understand that 24 seasons of pretty much horrible football has made Cleveland Browns’ fans very sensitive. Three winning seasons since 1999 will do that to you.

However, logic seems to have gone out the window concerning this version of the Browns. Not to ignore the entire history of the expansion Browns, but the last three seasons have resulted in a 28-26 record under the Andrew Berry/Kevin Stefanski regime.

While not great, it’s a far cry from the 4-44 record from 2015-17 or the 27-69 mark from 2008-2013. Cleveland football fans have seen plenty of not just bad football, but historically bad football.

They should know better that that’s not the 2023 Cleveland Browns.

First of all, this team has a great defense, and by the end of the year, we might be able to say it is the best defense the Browns have had since we can remember, which dates back to 1965.

They have an excellent pass rush, led by Myles Garrett, who is the best pass rusher the franchise has ever had. And he has a lot of help in Za’Darius Smith, Ogbonnia Okoronkwo, Shelby Harris, and Dalvin Tomlinson.

They are good and deep. Jim Schwartz’ unit also has an outstanding secondary. Last year, Martin Emerson and Denzel Ward led the team in passes defended with 15 for the entire season. And only Grant Delpit also was in double figures with 10.

This season, Ward already has 5, Emerson 3, and three other players have 2. We understand the Baltimore game was a disappointment but check again. It was really one bad quarter.

Good defense keeps you in every game and gives you a chance to win. And barring injuries, the Cleveland Browns are very good on that side of the football.

Fans are convinced there is something seriously wrong with Deshaun Watson, and maybe there is, but we doubt it. He won’t play tomorrow, but should be back in a week or two, and let’s not forget he is coming off his best game as a Brown.

If he’s out for a longer period, the team is pretty much screwed offensively. But that’s nothing new, we have been saying that since the end of last season. He is the key to making a playoff run.

Look, the Browns handled the situation poorly. Before the Ravens’ game, we are sure they were betting on Watson’s durability and history of pain tolerance. Once he didn’t play that game, they should have been more transparent. Not doing so, opens the organization up for questions about being secretive.

And if he’s back, look at the rest of the schedule. Now, we don’t like to play the “schedule game”, but it would seem to us that after tomorrow’s game, the schedule isn’t overly difficult.

We also know you have to play the game on the field (which we would also say for today) but we see some teams we would classify as terrible remaining: Arizona (sorry, Jon Gannon), Denver, Chicago, and a Jets team without Aaron Rodgers.

Also, we would consider the games against the Rams, Texans, and Colts very winnable, especially if Watson is playing. If they emerge victorious in those contests, that’s nine wins and that makes them a playoff contender.

Again, there are a lot of variables to consider, especially injuries. However, even with a loss tomorrow, there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic about the Cleveland Browns.

Imagine that…the words optimism and Browns in the same sentence.

Turnovers, Not Coaching Is The Browns’ Problem Right Now.

The knee-jerk reaction for most Browns fans and media alike after a loss is to blame the play calling. And of course, that leads to talking about hiring a new coach.

Kevin Stefanski is no different. Add the losing to his stoic, unemotional demeanor and that he doesn’t scream on the sidelines and grab players by the facemask, and it’s easy to see why football fans in northeast Ohio haven’t embraced the Browns head coach.

Look, we aren’t saying Stefanski is the second coming of Paul Brown or Blanton Collier for that matter. Those two are #1 and #2 on the franchise’s all-time wins list for coaches. But he has won more games than Butch Davis and Romeo Crennel, both of whom have coached more games.

We wish Stefanski would change some things. We would like to see more use of David Njoku in space, and right now, he seems to have fallen in love with his new toy, that being Elijah Moore.

He has tried to make Moore an all purpose offensive threat, but in the first four games of the season, Moore has caught 17 passes for 148 yards, 8.7 per catch, and rushed 7 times for 3 yards, although he lost 20 yards on one attempt in the Baltimore game.

That has led to Donovan Peoples-Jones, who caught 61 throws for 839 yards a year ago, to be virtually ignored so far this year. He’s been targeted just 14 times, catching six passes for 75 yards.

He’s one of only three Browns to average over 10 yards per catch this year, and one of them, Kareem Hunt, has only caught two passes.

From the criticism on sports talk shows and social media, you would think the Browns were 0-4 and headed toward the first overall pick in next spring’s NFL Draft.

Instead, they are 2-2 despite losing the turnover battle in each game they’ve played this season. And as GM Andrew Berry said in his press conference last week, that’s a difficult way to win games in the NFL.

We said before the season started that despite the endless debate on the team all year in the area, the fortunes of the Cleveland Browns depended on the play of Deshaun Watson, who the organization dealt three first round draft picks and paid a king’s ransom in salary for.

If he plays well, the Browns will win and make the playoffs. If he plays like he did in the six games he appeared in last season, Cleveland will struggle, Stefanski will likely be fired and the organization will be going in a new direction.

Again.

The defense is playing at a high level. And if the offense doesn’t hand the Steelers two touchdowns in week two, Cleveland likely wins that game. And of course, last weekend they were forced to play Dorian Thompson-Robinson, a rookie fifth round draft pick, as Watson was injured.

Aaron Rodgers told Green Bay Packers fans to relax a few years ago. Browns supporters need to heed that advice. They are still 13 games left to play. If the brown and orange stop turning the ball over, they will be just fine.

No Chubb, No Watson, No Offense, No Surprise?

When the Cleveland Browns lost Nick Chubb a couple of weeks ago, we said Deshaun Watson had to take more of the offensive burden for the team.

With Watson out last Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens, the offense was without both of their foundations, and the result was a 28-3 loss at home to their division rivals, dropping them to 2-2 on the season.

When GM Andrew Berry traded Josh Dobbs to Arizona before the regular season started, it left the Browns without an experienced back up. It was a gamble, and one that many people would have made, but it came back to bite them against the Ravens.

Dorian Thompson-Robinson is a rookie fifth-round draft pick, and he played like a…rookie fifth round draft pick, hitting 19 of 36 passes for just 121 yards.

The rook hit a couple of throws early, and then started missing targets resulting in an interception which set the Ravens up for their first touchdown. And with Cleveland in Baltimore territory, tried an ill-advised lateral that went out of bounds and was ruled an illegal forward pass.

We would have considered going to P.J. Walker in the second half had the score remained 14-3 after the second quarter. Someone who has played in the NFL before.

The Kevin Stefanski play calling critics are out again and strangely they only come out when the Browns lose. Weird how that works out, isn’t it?

Here’s what we think happened. The Ravens, knowing Cleveland was starting a QB who hadn’t completed a pass in an NFL game, loaded the box to shut down the run. Stefanski saw this and tried to give Thompson-Robinson some easy throw to keep him out of third and long situations.

The coach tried to do the same thing when Baker Mayfield was at the helm. He doesn’t want to be in third and long. By the way, do you know any coaches who like to be in that situation?

Besides the first offensive play, a 25-yard run by Jerome Ford canceled because of a dubious holding call on Amari Cooper, the Browns couldn’t run the ball before Pierre Strong Jr. ripped off a decent run in garbage time.

Ford had 9 carries for 26 yards, gaining 10 on one carry. Kareem Hunt? Five carries for 12 yards.

And we are pretty sure the coach didn’t tell Elijah Moore to run 20 yards behind the line of scrimmage on a jet sweep.

Perhaps the offensive line isn’t as good as advertised. The Browns have played two games without Chubb and have had trouble running in both games. And you know what happens if you can’t run the ball and stop the run.

You don’t win.

The defense sprung a leak for one quarter in the loss, allowing Baltimore to gain 206 of their 296 yards in the second quarter, resulting in two touchdowns. The good news? They adjusted in the second half, allowing just 42 yards after halftime.

They are entitled to have a bad quarter every once in a while.

If Watson is healthy enough to play the rest of the season, this is just a blip on the radar.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t things the coaching staff and front office need to figure out. Should they bring in another quarterback? The offensive line has to get better.

The defense is just fine though.

Another tough test comes after the bye week when San Francisco comes to town. If Watson is back, it will serve as a measuring stick to see how good this Browns team is.

We remain optimistic.

Impressive Statement After A Tough Loss For Browns

After Nick Chubb’s injury against the Steelers, we said the offense needed Deshaun Watson to step up.

He did just that in Sunday’s 27-3 victory over the Tennessee Titans. Watson completed 27 of 33 passes for 289 yards and two touchdowns in his best performance wearing brown and orange.

Cleveland’s usual vaunted running attack, which averaged over 200 yards per game after two weeks, was held in check by the Titans, gaining just 78 yards. So, the offense needed Watson to throw the football effectively, and he did just that.

Amari Cooper had a big game too, catching seven balls for over 100 yards and a TD, and Donovan Peoples-Jones emerged again after not being a factor against Pittsburgh, catching the game’s first pass and grabbing three throws for 49 yards.

We would still like to see the Browns use TE David Njoku more, because we believe he might be the most explosive player on offense now that Chubb is out. He did have four receptions, but for just 20 yards.

As good of a game as Watson had, this game was still about the defense, which held Tennessee to under 100 yards on the game, 2 of 12 on third down conversions, and Derrick Henry had just 20 yards on 11 carries.

Jim Schwartz’ unit also sacked Ryan Tannehill five times, with Myles Garrett garnering 3.5, to give him undisputed first place on the franchise’s all-time list with 79, passing Bill Glass’ total of 77.5. Glass did it in 94 games, Garrett beat him with seven games to spare.

The only thing that pauses us from saying this defense is elite is the quality of the opponents they’ve played already.

Yes, Cincinnati has a prolific offense, but the conditions in the season opener weren’t conducive to moving the ball at will. And Pittsburgh and Tennessee don’t have great attacks either, or don’t have great quarterbacks.

Still, the defense is playing at a very high level and are constantly attacking, quite a change from past years when they sat in zone coverage most of the time and the pass rush was solely predicated on Garrett getting it done.

Right now, opponents are averaging just 163.67 yards per game. By contrast, the Browns are RUNNING for 160.67 yards per contest.

The defense seems to have calmed the gambling tendencies of coach Kevin Stefanski, who now takes field goals more often. When you aren’t allowing many points, getting three when you have the opportunity is the correct and safe play.

We also don’t want to jinx new kicker Dustin Hopkins, but the veteran has knocked seven of his eight field goal attempts through the uprights, and they look beautiful as they head near the goalposts, not like the knuckleballs the former kicker seemed to boot.

So, through three weeks of the season, the Browns have two wins of more than 20 points. The last time this happened was in 2014 (team went 7-9 under Mike Pettine) when they beat Pittsburgh 31-10 and Cincinnati 24-3.

And they’ve won both of those games despite losing the turnover battle in each.

That’s not as long as we thought, but it’s still 9 years.

Another divisional game awaits next week when the Ravens come to town and right now, the AFC North has three teams tied at 2-1. Lamar Jackson will present another challenge for Schwartz and this defense.

One thing the defense hasn’t done a lot of yet is turn the ball over, with just two takeaways on the season. If that starts to happen, let’s just say, look out.

Biggest Browns Issue? Stop Turning Over the Football

Cleveland Browns’ fans still have to be shaken up after the season ending injury to Nick Chubb in Monday night’s loss to Pittsburgh. We know Chubb had a severe knee injury in his college days, but he seemed indestructible since coming to the Browns.

The organization won’t give up on the season though, so there are still 15 games remaining and the focal point of the offense now has to be QB Deshaun Watson.

We said before the year started that the fate of the season depended on how well Watson played, and if he didn’t play well, the Browns were essentially screwed.

It’s only two games, but Watson is still struggling, completing just 55.1% of his passes, just 5.6 yards per attempt and a quarterback rating of 69.1, which is 30th in the league, ahead of just rookie Bryce Young and Zach Wilson.

He’s behind Kenny Pickett, who looked terrible against the Browns on Monday.

He has to be better than that if the Browns want to make the playoffs.

Of course, after a Browns’ loss, the critics of Kevin Stefanski have returned complaining about play calling. What if we told you Cleveland ranked sixth in the NFL in yards gained after two weeks?

That’s where they are. They are moving the football. The problem is turnovers, as the Browns’ six have them just one behind the Vikings for the most in the league. Stop turning it over, and we think the offense will be just fine.

Besides turnovers, we have to talk about the offensive line. The interior of the line is fine with guards Joel Bitonio and Wyatt Teller and center Ethan Pocic. Rookie Dawand Jones has stepped in for Jack Conklin and has more than held his own.

But like a lot of units, it is only as good as its weakest member and right now Jedrick Wills is not playing well. Pittsburgh put a lot of pressure on Watson. Now, we understand Watson sacks himself at times, and he is fifth in being sacked with nine.

At what point though does Stefanski and offensive line coach Bill Callahan make Wills accountable for his play? It appears he is the weak link in an otherwise pretty strong unit. We don’t know what the alternative would be, but it will be a problem going forward because that’s where opponents are going to attack.

We recognize the Steelers do not have a high-powered offense, but it certainly looks like the Cleveland defense is approaching elite status if they remain healthy. Pittsburgh basically had one good offensive play all night, and the unit has allowed less than 100 yards rushing in both games.

That’s a vast improvement from the sieve against the run it was last year.

Certainly, the Browns will see offenses better than Pittsburgh in the coming weeks, but it appears the new coordinator and the new personnel have made a great difference in this unit.

As for the loss of Chubb, there is no replacing him. That’s what happens when you are the best at what you do. But we are sure Stefanski will still want to run the football and Andrew Berry will find another running back to help pick up the slack.

That said, the focal point of the offense is gone, and it is up to everyone else, particularly Watson to improve. That doesn’t mean he needs to throw for 400 yards every week though.

For us, we think the next most explosive player the Browns have on offense is TE David Njoku and Cleveland needs to find a way to get him the ball more often.

Cleveland suffered a blow with the injury to Chubb, but it becomes a worse situation if they let his absence ruin what should be a promising season.

An Opening Week Beatdown For The Browns

Last year, the Cleveland Browns were a sieve defensively against the run. At least in week one, the defense run by new coordinator Jim Schwartz solved that issue, allowing just 75 yards on the ground in a dominating 24-3 win over Cincinnati.

And although there is endless talk about Deshaun Watson and how he will do at quarterback, at the Browns’ core they are a running football team, and in most NFL games, if you run for over 200 yards, you will achieve victory.

Cleveland ran for 206 against the Bengals.

It was a day not suited for an aerial extravaganza, and we saw the impatient Browns’ fans on social media complaining that Watson wasn’t any better than last season, in which he only played the last six games, but he was the better QB on the field on Sunday.

Watson hit 16 of 29 passes for 154 yards and ran five times for 45 yards and a touchdown. Yes, he missed some throws, but we are willing to attribute that to playing with a wet football, and we are willing to do that because Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow was just 14 of 31 for 82 yards.

It was only a good day if you were a duck.

No doubt the Browns will need Watson to play better as the season goes on, perhaps as early as next Monday night. But we aren’t going to panic because of the conditions. In fact, at halftime, we thought that Watson has yet to play a game in Cleveland with the Browns where the conditions have been nice.

Overall, this was a day for the defense and Nick Chubb.

The longest play Cincinnati had all day was a 22 yard run by Joe Mixon, and the longest pass play was a 12 yard toss from Burrow to Ja’Marr Chase. Think about that again, the longest pass play was 12 yards.

From an offense run by a player almost universally considered the second best at his position in the league.

Cleveland had only two sacks, by newcomer Ogbonnia Okoronkwo and of course, Myles Garrett, who passed Clay Matthews on the all-time team sack list according to ProFootballReference.com for second place. He needs two more to tie Bill Glass for the top spot in Browns’ history.

The Bengals ran just 56 offensive plays for the contest, gaining a paltry 142 yards.

We wondered watching the game how it may have unfolded with last year’s defensive coordinator.

As for Chubb, what more can we say about the man who should be considered the best running back in the league. By the way, he also caught four passes for 21 yards. When he carries the football, we always think he is about to break one for a long gain.

Jerome Ford did fumble, but also picked up 36 yards and it should have been more except he was bottled up a bit late in the game, when it was basically garbage time. He did have a 17 yard gain, but we will have to see going forward if ball security will be an issue.

So, it’s on to Pittsburgh for a Monday Night game against a team that will no doubt be very angry after getting crushed in their opener. And the Browns will be using a rookie right tackle in huge Dawand Jones, who is now the starter with Jack Conklin’s injury.

Look for T.J. Watt and the Steelers to test the rookie and make life tough on Watson.

We are sure the Browns will be prepared for it.

It wasn’t just the victory that makes us optimistic, it was the dominating nature of the win. But you are only as good as your next performance in the NFL.

Finally, Garrett Has Some Help Rushing The Passer

For much of Myles Garrett’s career with the Cleveland Browns, he’s been a one-man gang in terms of rushing the passer. Last year might have been the best example of that. Garrett led the team with 16 sacks and the next best total was Taven Bryan who had three.

This is Garrett’s 7th season in the league, and on paper, this is the best group of defensive linemen Garrett has ever been surrounded with and probably the most accomplished defensive coordinator the Browns have had in his tenure (with all due respect to Gregg Williams).

It is interesting that the years where Cleveland had a decent pass rusher to pair with Garrett were the bad seasons the Browns have had since he was the first overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft.

In his rookie season, the Browns had the 14th ranked defense and although Garrett played just 11 games, he led Cleveland in sacks with seven. Ranking second was LB James Burgess, and the next best defensive lineman was fellow rookie Emmanuel Ogbah, who had three.

The next two seasons, the best pass rusher to compliment Garrett was DT Larry Ogunjobi who had 5.5 sacks in both 2018 and 2019. Garrett had 13.5 in ’18 and dropped to 10 in ’19, which of course was the year he played only 10 games because he was suspended.

When the Browns finally made the playoffs in 2020, there finally was pressure coming from the other side at defensive end as Olivier Vernon had nine sacks to go along with Garrett’s dozen. And the following season, Cleveland went 8-9 with Jadeveon Clowney contributing nine sacks and Garrett getting a career high 16, which he matched last season.

Williams liked to put pressure on the opposing quarterback, but as we noted before, it seems Joe Woods’ philosophy was if Myles doesn’t sack the passer, then we need to go to Plan B.

That’s not Jim Schwartz’ plan.

This off-season GM Andrew Berry brought in several defensive linemen, basically overhauling the unit outside of Garrett. Part of this was brought about by Cleveland’s dreadful performance against the run in 2022, but Schwartz loves to have depth so he can rotate lineman and keep them fresh.

They brought in Za’Darius Smith, who has 54.5 sacks in his career and has accumulated at least 10 in three of his last four seasons. That total would be the highest by any Garrett teammate since the former Texas A & M standout arrived on the shores of Lake Erie.

Another pass rusher acquired by Berry is Ogbonnia Okoronkwo, who had five sacks in his first full season in the league last year for Houston.

And during training camp, the Browns signed Shelby Harris as a free agent. Harris only had two sacks last year for Seattle, but had two seasons (’19 and ’21) in Denver where he got to the QB six times.

Add in DT Dalvin Tomlinson, whose 2.5 sacks for the Vikings last season would have tied him for third on the team in Cleveland a year ago. Tomlinson was brought in primarily to be a run stopper, but he can get to the QB as well.

Former Browns’ GM Ernie Accorsi used to say the two most important positions on the field were quarterback and guys who can get to the opposing QB.

The Browns should have found some help for Myles Garrett in that regard this off-season.

Browns Keeping A Low Profile Right Now

The Cleveland Browns started training camp a couple of weeks ago, and have already played an exhibition game last Thursday, but it just doesn’t feel like there is any buzz right now.

Perhaps that will change this weekend when the Browns play their only pre-season game at home against the Washington Commanders, but the starting lineup is pretty much set on both sides of the football, so everything seems to be anticlimactic until the orange and brown take the field for real on September 10th against the Bengals.

We continue to say the Browns’ fortunes rest mostly on how Deshaun Watson plays. If he plays like the guy who completed 67.8% of his throws with Houston from 2017-2020, the Browns figure to be in the mix for a playoff spot, Kevin Stefanski keeps his job and GM Andrew Berry solidifies his position in the front office.

If Watson plays like he did when he returned from a year and a half layoff at the end of last season, then the franchise has a rather large problem considering how much draft capital was spent.

One area that should be much improved is the defense, particularly against the run. The Browns hired highly decorated defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz. Cleveland allowed 150 or more rushing yards seven times a year ago. They went 1-6 in those games.

By the way, the league average in yards allowed on the ground in 2022 was 121.6.

Schwartz’ defenses have ranked in the top half of the league in ten of his 19 seasons where he was either head coach or defensive coordinator.

We expect the defense will be much better both in stopping the run, where really, they couldn’t get much worse, and in pass defense. Schwartz likes to have depth on the defensive line, so he can keep people fresh, and the defensive backs are already talking about how playing more man-to-man coverage plays into their strength.

The only news that can come out of this year’s training camp is bad, and that would be injuries. Already, we have seen two defensive linemen go down and will miss the opener but should be back early in the season.

And to that point, although some of the starters, most notably Watson, probably need to be on the field a bit during pre-season play, there are a few who shouldn’t see any action until week one.

In particular, we are talking about Myles Garrett, Nick Chubb, and Joel Bitonio. We don’t live in fear of injuries, they can happen without contact, but we don’t need to see this trio until Cincinnati visits for the first regular season game.

After Friday’s game, the Browns will have a controlled scrimmage against the
Eagles next week, so the starters will play in that and not the game.

It’s very likely fans here won’t see the true Browns squad after Friday
until the season opener. And that explains why there isn’t the usual buzz
around the camp.

But maybe there should be. This might be the most important season the
Cleveland Browns have had in many years.

Who Is Best Browns Defensive Player Since 1960?

Sometimes arguments between friends make their way into what we right about. A group of our friends were talking about the Cleveland Browns’ defensive prospects this season under new coordinator Jim Schwartz, and the thought arose did the Browns ever have a dominant defense?

Since we talked following the team in 1965, we would say the closest were the defenses of the mid 1980’s, led by cornerbacks Hanford Dixon and Frank Minnifield. Unfortunately, those defenses really didn’t have a great front seven. It was good, but they weren’t dominant.

The 1987 squad finished second in the NFL in points allowed but were just 20th in sacks. The ’94 Browns allowed the least points in the league, but 7th in yards allowed and sacks. But that was kind of a one-year thing, they finished 17th in points given up in ’93 and 20th in ’95.

That morphed into this question: Who is the best defensive player the Browns have had? We mentioned Len Ford and Bill Willis, both of whom played in the early 50’s, and since no one had seen them play, the inquiry became who is the greatest defensive player Cleveland has had since 1960?

The great offensive players the franchise have had roll off your tongue: Jim Brown, Paul Warfield, Ozzie Newsome, Leroy Kelly, and of course, one of this year’s inductees, Joe Thomas.

Of course, in the fifties, you had Otto Graham, Mac Speedie, Marion Motley, and Dante Lavelli among others.

If you go strictly by Pro Bowl appearances, the leader would be Michael Dean Perry, who made five (1989-1991, 1993-94). Perry ranks 7th all-time on the club’s sack list, and played with the team from 1988-94, before finishing up with Denver and Kansas City.

Seven defenders made four Pro Bowl appearances (we know what people think about that “event” now): Chip Banks, Minnifield, Jerry Sherk, Bill Glass, Jim Houston, Clay Matthews, and current Brown Myles Garrett.

As we said before, Minnifield and Dixon were shutdown cornerbacks, and opposing passers did not want to throw anywhere in their direction. Neither had a lot of interceptions when they played (Dixon had 26, 10th for the franchise, and Minnifield had 20, 13th)

Sherk was known as one of the best tackles in the game before a staph infection derailed what was shaping up to be a dominant career. In addition to the Pro Bowls, he was named first team All Pro by the Associated Press in 1976.

Glass is the all time franchise leader in sacks according to Pro Football Reference (at least for now) with 77.5, done in 94 career games.

Matthews made four straight all star appearances (1985-89) and is second in Browns history in sacks with 75.

Garrett is still compiling numbers. In terms of AP First Team All-NFL, his two honors (’20 and ’21) tie Perry and Dixon among Browns defenders. And barring injury, he will become the franchise’s all-time sack leader this year as he is three behind Glass’ total.

And although there is no Pro Bowl game anymore, no doubt he will continue to add to his appearances, and if he gets to six, he will join Thomas, Brown, Kelly, Lou Groza, Gene Hickerson, and Dick Schafrath with that total. (NOTE: Likely Joel Bitonio as well, he has five currently)

So, what is the answer to the question of who is the Browns’ best defensive player since 1960? Right now, it’s up for debate, but in a year or two, there will be no doubt that it is Myles Garrett.