DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Jim Schwartz and the Defense

I think that defense determines records more across a season. Offense is slower to gel, and, as a rule offenses have bad days and can put together lousy streaks. I feel our D let us down regularly. I am excited for the Schwartz Browns. Hope we have agents of absolute chaos digging in. Our record will reflect how disruptive and destructive we play. We don't need paper victories. I suspect we can shock some folks who took advantage of Woods regularly. We may be able to inflict game-changer plays this year, and hopefully take over games with stronger second halves. And some tight wins and luck here and there? We may surprise ourselves. Go, Browns.

They just said that same thing yesterday on ESPN … we were #2 in total defense when we played man and like #26 when we played zone … and woods played mostly zone LOL

If true, and I know there most likely are other factors, that's still a wild stat.

Let's face it Joe Woods is not a good DC. We all could see that here. He may be a good positional coach but not a DC.

Yeah, I think it was pretty apparent he wasn’t gonna work here

Yet less than a month after he was fired from the Browns he was hired by the Saints as their DC. What I think the actual problem was is that he is a DC who runs a zone scheme and the personnel here didn't line up with what he runs defensively. So I guess one could say he may lack the ability to alter his scheme to fit his personnel. Or one could say the FO didn't get him the personnel to run his scheme depending on how one looks at it.

But before one jumps the gun on that, I think they should look at just how many moves this FO made to get the players in here to run Schwartz D scheme. They basically did everything in their power to get him the personnel tailored to run what his specialty is. I think one should ask themselves, did they do the same thing for Woods?

Maybe we gave Woods just what he asked for. Smaller DT's, smaller linebackers, extra safety's. Woods wanted speed, speed, and more speed while teams ran the ball down our throat.

I agree. I think Woods got everything he wanted just as the team pivoted and brought in what Schwartz wanted.

Good point GM

Maybe. But even at that, if you look at the talent level and depth at both the S and LB'er positions it wasn't good. And many people on this board knew there was a lack of talent on the interior DL going into last season. So maybe they did. But maybe they didn't. Getting someone the "type" of players they want doesn't mean those players don't have to be talented enough to be good players. What I do know is it didn't take long for the Saints to hire him at the DC position. I'm pretty sure there were reasons for that.

There were reasons the Browns hired Hue Jackson as well. That doesn't make it a good hire.

And when was Hue Jackson hired again as an NFL HC after he was fired? For Woods it took less than a month to be hired at his former position. And it wasn't the Browns who last hired Woods, it was the Saints. I mean if we were to get into the discussion of all the bad hires the Browns have made since 1999 we would be here talking about it for days.

And none of that addresses what I posted. The Browns had no real threat at FS, weak LB'ers and a poor interior on the DL.

I'm not saying Woods was great here. What I'm saying is that he alone was not responsible. There was enough blame to go around. Obviously the Saints feel that way.

What I am saying is Woods got the type of players he wanted. His scheme and system was the problem. He wanted speed, speed, speed, and not size to go along with it. He got that and you see where that got us. His defense was also to complicated requiring the defense to over think, and play slower, and he had HUGE problems with making adjustments during the game.

BTW we hired Jackson after Oakland fired him unless my memory is wrong. Woods the man I have no problem with, but Woods the Coach will not be successful in the NFL unless he learns from his mistakes and make changes. Time will tell.

the Saints Defense is in the middle of a complete rebuild
they lost a good amount of talent on defense in the off-season and the rest are old and need to be replaced.

Gone:
Onyemata
Davenport
Tuttle
Williams
Elliss
Hansen
Huggins
Street
Sorenson
Evans

Old Players
Cam Jordan is 34
Demario Davis is 34
Honey Badger is 31
Roby is 31

The NFL is all about match ups, and you need roster diversity on defense to be successful.

GM is right, if you have nothing but speed, the way to attack the defense is with power, hence the poor run defense. KS always it quick to point out that if an offense is able to run they ball (think Chubb), they will just grind the clock and take the W. Now, you don't score as many points, or have gaudy offensive stats, but you get a W in the win column.

So the pass defense looks great in the stat column, because the other team is too busy running the ball down your throat.

I think we wanted the speed aspect because we foresaw that Baltimore/Lamar were the ones to beat.

Woods’ in game adjustments were horrible. Think back to when Chase went down against us and we simply said: well, we already had our game plan in and we couldn’t stray from it

I want to see our LB play. I can see the attacking D line making the secondary individuals better. I assume less zone will help.

If you attack better, then fewer adjustments are needed. Many concede Woods had poor adjustments in-game. The fact that he needed them so regularly says something about game prep weakness beyond resisting adjustments. I am eager to see us run a D where our vanilla is a pressure as standard scheme. Note again how LB's need to cash in and get stops as well.

I don't think we can judge his in game adjustments until he actually makes one.

Haha

The "type of players"? What does the type of player have to do with the player being good or not? You've avoided addressing that part of it like the plague.


Hmmm... yet after slow starts the last two seasons in both years the D became markedly better later in the season.


5 years after he was HC for the Raiders. And nobody has hired him as a HC since. Woods was hired at his same position less than a month after he was fired by the Browns. Those are in no way the same thing or even close to the same thing and avoided the actual question.... again.


I guess we'll find out soon enough.

*Hands Pit a wet washrag, ad a q-tip* Here clean out your ears and wipe the sleep away from your eyes. I answered your question. We didn't play much with standard FS most of the year Woods system called for 3 safeties and their roles were a little different. weak linebackers and poor interior line play.... see my comment about Woods wanting speed, speed, speed, and not caring about size, That answers your question, but just for you I will go a step further. We could have signed a few better players last year however Woods didn't want guys who didn't fit his scheme. If you didn't notice a few of the linebackers we picked up after all the injuries actually played better than our starters, and backups. I can tell you Woods was not all for some of the guys we did pick up (due to the lack of speed he wanted) That helped seal his fate in Cleveland.


1. I don't want to say the defense was dumbed down later in the season, but the defense was dumbed down later in the season.
2. As I said above once some of our smaller linebackers were replaced with linebackers who could actually slow down the run we suddenly looked better.

Like I said Woods is a good guy (I have met and talked with him) but at this point in his career he is not a good defensive coordinator, I hope he can make the changes he needs to so that he can become successful.

So your reply is, "but they were fast" in order to address the quality of a players? Well Anthony Schwartz is fast too for a WR. How's that working out? And I suppose the players this FO are getting on defense aren't designed to fit Schwartz scheme? The O isn't getting players and designing around a new scheme with watson? Of course you're supposed to get players designed to fit the scheme of your coaching staff. I have no idea what point you think you're making with that comment. The question is, are those players good?

Finding backups that play somewhere close to average with the leftovers around the league at that point in the season only shows just how bad you were at finding starters. Because that's all those LB'ers did. Played somewhere close to average. Not putrid like the players they claimed were NFL starters. I hear just fine. That's why I understand all of the double talk.

Wondering if I'm the only fan who doesn't think Winfrey is already a turd. He said some dumb %^#$ last year and got himself in the dog house...but he was no-worse-and-probably-better than any other guy we put in there after the midpoint of the season...better than guys who had been in the league longer than Winfrey.

His recent incident with his date/girlfriend was stupid/unfortunate...but the last time I saw him play football I liked him better than any other DT we rolled out there. Low bar...I know. I hope Schwartz gives him a shot based on his play and not his words.

Some players get a pass and some players don't.

My reply was plain as day. Try reading it again with your eyes open this time.

The last couple years the Browns defense was very over rated.
It's no secret the Browns defense read it own press clippings
Under Joe Woods. This defense lacked physicality and tenacity
But the Homers told us it was a playoff type top 7 defense.
In reality the Browns defense under Woods was more bark than bite

I think Schwartz is going to be more no nonsense and he won't
Allow players to have a sense of entitlement
I don't think he will hesitate to bench a player if he isn't producing
The 2 elements Schwartz needs to pay attention to is the
Porous tackling and lack of turnovers attributed to the defenses
Under Woods.

So were mine. My eyes were wide open the entire time. You simply have trouble admitting there was enough blame to go around and that the FO shared part of the responsibility for failures and lack of talent in certain units of the defense. This isn't a villain verses hero scenario here.

I have no trouble admitting when I am wrong. However I will be damned if I admit I am wrong when I am not. In plain english I told you the Browns got Players that Woods wanted, ones who fit his criteria. You then want to blame the front office for not getting Woods players he wanted when they DID. That blame lays with Woods not with anybody else, and it's something you deny. As far as villain vs hero.... hell neither Woods or the front office are Hero's in any way shape or form at this time, by the same token neither are villains either.

I think other teams are going to find more times during the year where they can seem to pass at will, against the Browns
because, Greedy, and JJ3 are gone, and b/c Ronnie Harrison is gone, and a year removed from Troy Hill being gone,
and the cover guys are not always going to be all healthy.

In 2022, not all of the DL were going to always be all healthy, and they had lost both Maliks and Takk Mckinly and were a year removed from losing Sheldon Richardson or Ogbinaya, and the defensive line had difficulty vs the run.

If other teams can find more times to pass at will, then your team will have to score a bunch of 44 point games to be successful.

well, NOT SO ..... counter argument, ... b/c the new safeties Thornhill and ?, are veterans

Yeah but, the true corners depth has been replaced with @uestionable players times four, and AND, the new veteran safeties, and all of them will have to learn what everyone does as roles.

the best result would be if one group can stay together, learn to play real well,
and then go into a whole season knowing how to play their best as a group.

well,
since the Browns never do this, and always finish in 3rd or 4th place in the division then you could be tempted to believe that that is a reason.

In plain English you told me the FO got Woods "the type of players he wanted" not "the players he wanted." Those are two totally different things.


You may wish to compare what you said before to what you're saying now. At this point i'm not sure which things you are saying is accurate.


So then my entire premise of "There's enough blame to go around" is accurate?

Holy hell batman really, no I mean really. Name one time a team just went out and signed every player they wanted. We want em yep just go tell them they play for the Browns nobody else can sign them, there is no salary cap, everybody in the NFL wants to play for the Browns no exceptions

There were people in the front office who did not agree with the players we signed for the defense under Woods. WHY because he was the defensive cord and he had his own philosophy and schemes.

What is next do you want to argue over the word "is" and what it means? Maybe you want to claim Bill Clinton never had sexual relations with Monica because it wasn't intercourse.


No your sure. You just want to nit pick over "the type of players he wanted" not "the players he wanted.


Not on this subject

I have no idea why you wish to sidestep exactly what it was that you yourself said by trying to present it as something that it's clearly not. It's quite easy to see you stated two totally different things. Although you decided to take the low road by blaming me for your error, at least you cleared up what you meant verses what you posted.


So you call saying two completely different things as "nitpicking"?

So let me get this straight. Since they got Woods "the type of players he wanted" that means they were good players? What players on the interior of the DL last year were "good players"? As I stated, if you look at the speed of Anthony Schwatrz this FO drafted a WR with the speed that was the type of WR they wanted. That's what getting the "type of player" you're looking for looks like. But Anthony Schwartz is still a crappy WR. The exact same thing could be said about the LB'ers and interior DL starters on the roster last year.

So now the poor talent evaluation of the FO is Wood's fault in your eyes.

Pit, remember that one time you said "ah, I see what you were saying, no big deal"??

Yeah, neither do we.

Who is this "we" you are speaking of? There's a clear difference between saying this FO got Schwartz "the players he wanted" and getting him the "type of players he wanted."

One description actually blames Scwartz for the lack of talent by the players on the field. The other clearly does not. But I knew one of you would come along soon to claim there isn't a huge difference between the two. You certainly didn't disappoint.

Actually, that's not what I claimed at all (big surprise). The "one of you" may just be the voices in your head?

I'm gonna have to say "getting the type of players a coach wants" is simply as good as any FO can do. You look at some of the players Berry brought in and they are fine. I blame the scheme and the way Woods called plays. I believe other defensive coordinators would have got more out of the same group of players. jm2c.