John Johnson III wants ‘sense of urgency’ after Browns fire Joe Woods
BEREA — Greg Newsome II’s now-former defensive coordinator was only hours from being removed from the job. So the Browns cornerback wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted to see in his next coordinator.
“I haven’t really thought of that too much,” Newsome said Monday as the Browns cleaned out their lockers. “Honestly, I think it’s just going to be kind of the same thing, just keeping things more simpler. Allowing play makers to go out there and make plays. Keeping eyes on the quarterback, things like that. Kind of the stuff we are doing towards the end of the season.
“I think going into next season, kind of reviewing from the beginning of the season, that the second half of the season and seeing what we did well, seeing things we struggle with and kind of focus on the things we did well.”
The Browns officially announced they had fired Joe Woods on Monday morning, one day after they concluded a 7-10 season with a 28-14 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Already, a list of candidates to come in to replace Woods has started to materialize through league sources.
Seattle Seahawks associate head coach/defense Sean Desai, Steelers senior defensive assistant/linebackers Brian Flores, New England Patriots linebackers coach Jarod Mayo and Tennessee Titans defensive assistant Jim Schwartz have all been confirmed to the Beacon Journal as targets. Flores, who was the Miami Dolphins head coach from 2019-21, Mayo and Schwartz have some direct connection to Bill Belichick, while Desai’s NFL background has been with the Chicago Bears prior to joining up with Pete Carroll in Seattle this season.
Desai is the only one who’s currently occupied with an upcoming playoff game. The Seahawks, who earned the NFC’s No. 7 seed on Sunday, will play at the San Francisco 49ers in a wild card playoff game Saturday.
“I mean, if you look at the last five, six weeks they were bringing it in the meetings every time, we were top two defense in the last six weeks of the season,” Newsome said. “So I think we figured a way to fix it and try to stay more consistent. But at the end of the day, the last six weeks don’t really matter when [you] don’t do it the whole season. So it’s also another thing is just we got to find a way to just start out strong. “
That consistency may have been the biggest criticism of the Browns defense over Woods’ three seasons as its coordinator. The last two seasons, in particular, early to midseason struggles have sabotaged the potential those seasons had to potentially end up back in the playoffs as they did in their first season in 2020 under coach Kevin Stefanski and Woods.
This season, the defense bottomed out against the run, allowing 135.2 rushing yards per game. That ranked 25th in the NFL.
The struggles against the run seemed to coincide, first, with losing middle linebacker Anthony Walker Jr. to a season-ending torn quad muscle during the Browns’ Week 3 win over the Steelers. The Browns were, at the time, ranked seventh in the league against the run, allowing 83.7 yards per game.
In the 14 games after that, the Browns allowed eight opponents to rush for at least 150 yards, including back-to-back games in Weeks 4 and 5 in which the Atlanta Falcons ran for 202 yards and the Los Angeles Chargers ran for 238. In 10 of the Browns’ final 14 games an opponent ran for at least 130 yards.
Walker’s injury started a season-long run of season-ending injuries striking the linebacking corps. The Browns lost Jacob Phillips (torn pectoral), Sione Takitaki (torn ACL) and Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah (foot) between Weeks 7 and 14.
“You can always say that,” Walker said of the injuries’ impact. “I mean, teams go through injuries and stuff like that, so we won’t make excuses for it. Like I said, though, I think [Woods] did do a good job of putting us in positions to be successful.”
That doesn’t mean there weren’t times the players believed Woods may have overthought things. The season started off with the Browns secondary battling communication issues that led directly to a crippling loss to the New York Jets in Week 2, one week after it nearly led to a crippling loss in the season opener at the Carolina Panthers.