Cool Clips: Cleveland Browns' Inverted 2 vs. the Saints' Shanahan Style Offense.
It was a rough year for the secondary in Cleveland, but there were flashes of brilliance at times.
The Cleveland season never got off to a good start in 2024. The Browns earned only one win in each of the first three months of the schedule and concluded the season on a six-game skid. The final result was a 3-14 record with two marquee wins against division rivals Ravens and Steelers.
Most of the focus, and rightfully so, in Cleveland has been centered squarely on the quarterback position. Last year, Joe Flacco, who played intermittently for the Colts this year, was seen as the savior at the end of last year. Defensively, the unit was one of the best under Jim Schwartz, with a suffocating secondary and pass rush.
The ineptitude at quarterback masked other issues along the roster, mainly in the secondary. Last season (‘23), Nickel Greg Newsome was the 23rd-ranked CB in Field Vision’s Havoc Ratings. In 2024, he slid to 132nd. Third-year CB Martin Emerson Jr. finished the ‘23 season as the 16th-best CB in Havoc and looked to be a rising star as one of the NFL’s best young DB prospects. In ‘24, he returned to Earth as the 131st-ranked CB in Field Vision’s Havoc Ratings.
Safety Juan Thornhill, the 75th-ranked Safety in Havoc in ‘23, was replaced by Ronnie Hickman (79th-ranked Safety in ‘24) in six games he was injured or inactive. Thornhill’s production also dipped in ‘24, finishing 95th in Havoc Ratings.
The two best players from ‘23 are the same in ‘24, though. Denzel Ward is one of the best man-coverage CBs in the NFL. Last year, he finished 8th in man coverage Havoc. In ‘24, his overall rating slightly dipped to 46th overall. Grant Delpit is one of the best Safeties in the NFL and finished 22nd in Havoc Ratings this season after finishing #10 in ‘23.
The defense finished the ‘24 campaign in the lower third in EPA/pass (25th) to finish the year. Offenses consistently used quick motion to get the over-aggressive Browns secondary out of place or out-leveraged. Brackets and trade-offs in man coverage didn’t look right all year. In most games, there are times when receivers are running down the field wide-open. The consistency from ‘23 was never generated in this year’s campaign.
Cleveland's backend production has to be a concern moving forward. Schwartz's defense led the league in man coverage last year, running it ~40% of the time. The Browns’ coverage woes are a complete 180 from last year when they were one of the most dominant units in football. However, digging deeper, playing a relatively static defense sometimes led to problems against motion offenses.
Typically, when a defense sees a drastic fall-off from a previous year’s production, it can be chalked up to injury, but that isn’t the case for Cleveland. The end of the year saw Newsome move to the IR, and starters, like Thornhill, did miss games, but for the most part, the secondary was intact for much of the season.
The pass rush wasn’t an issue, either. Cleveland was #1 in PFF’s Pass Rush Production (PRP) and was #1 in Pressure Rate. The run defense was there, too, ranking eighth in EPA/run. In short, the secondary just didn’t play up to the standard set last year.
But there were warning signs if we examine the end of last year. In the playoffs, the Texans took advantage of the static structures within the Cleveland scheme. As with the previous year, the defense ranked at the bottom of middle-of-the-field disguise rates, but it led the league in closed-post coverage at ~72%.
Schwartz and the Browns kept most of the players on defense together and decided to ‘run it back’ in ‘24. Cleveland's static defense and mirrored roster didn’t have the same effect they had in ‘23. The defense held opposing quarterbacks to under 200 yards five times and recorded only three interceptions.
