Defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz wants to see more more turnovers, stops on third down

The Browns defense had a precipitous fall in 2024.After finishing 2023 as the NFL's No. 1-ranked unit, it slipped to 19th in yards allowed (342.1 per game) and tied for 27th in points (25.6). The league's worst scoring offense received most of the blame for the 3-14 record, but the defense played a significant role in the debacle.If the Browns are going to exceed expectations, shock the world and contend for the playoffs in 2025, the defense needs to approach its performance from 2023. Coordinator Jim Schwartz is stressing two areas of struggle from a year ago."Just things that end drives," he said last week during organized team activities. "Third-down percentage had dropped from No. 1 from the year before and then takeaways. Both of those things obviously end drives. We're trying to get off the field with no points allowed and those are the things that we're putting a big emphasis on this year. We emphasized them last year, but those are areas that we have to improve."The Browns allowed opponents to convert a league-low 29.1 percent of third downs on the way to the playoffs in 2023. They dropped to eighth last year at 36.2 percent.The lack of takeaways was worse.The Browns tied for 30th with 12, including a league-low four interceptions. Only Jacksonville's nine takeaways were worse. The Browns tied for fifth in 2023 with 28."Turnovers go a lot of different ways," Schwartz said. "We work a lot of different techniques for turnovers. A lot of turnovers are because of rush on the quarterback, and we've got to improve there from last year, get our rush percentage up. Being around the quarterback is a good formula for takeaways."Team speed is a good formula for taking the ball away and physical contact, which we're not working on right now. But guys that play physical nature of football, they have a habit of forcing turnovers. So if we can do those things, we can have good technique to punch balls out, force fumbles. We can play physically, we can play fast and we can rush the passer, I think the turnovers will take care of themselves."All-Pro defensive end Myles Garrett had 14 sacks and 44 pressures last year but didn't get enough help up front. The Browns hope rookie defensive tackle Mason Graham, the No. 5 pick out of Michigan, can capitalize on all the attention paid to Garrett by exploiting one-on-ones in the interior and consistently harassing quarterbacks."If the centers always slide to Myles, that provides a lot of opportunities for a player there," Schwartz said. "We have to take better advantage of those situations."I do think there's a lot of meat on the bone as far as (Graham's) production, and we can see better production from him than even we saw, and he had outstanding production in college."The Browns will miss linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, who won't play in 2025 due to a neck injury, but drafted UCLA's Carson Schwesinger at No. 33 to take his spot and signed free agent linebacker and Cleveland native Jerome Baker and veteran safeties Rayshawn Jenkins and Damontae Kazee."First thing you got to do is emphasize in practice and it's been done," linebacker Jordan Hicks said of creating turnovers. "We've started since I've been here every practice with the turnover circuit, just focusing on it. And then recognizing opportunities, going in the film room, seeing opportunities where we could have made it, seeing opportunities where we didn't even take a shot at the ball. So I think it's bringing it to the forefront of your mind, understanding how important it is and how game-changing it is to get a takeaway and then just being able to compete with our offense and be able to put it into action."Execution is the final piece of the puzzle. Pro Bowl cornerback Denzel Ward had a couple of chances Wednesday during OTAs to make interceptions but couldn't complete the catch. That was an issue last year, when he had two picks and a league-best 19 passes defensed."Denzel got his hands on a lot of passes last year, and we need to convert more of those to interceptions," Schwartz said. "And that's the difference between Pro Bowl and All-Pro. The game-changing plays. The PBU is big for us, but we need to get more of the INTs and he's made a big push to convert those to INTs and we need that to the show on the field."The safeties also must make a leap. Grant Delpit, Juan Thornhill, Rodney McLeod and Ronnie Hickman combined for three turnovers — no interceptions — last year despite Schwartz deploying a lot of three-safety packages.McLeod retired and Thornhill was cut in the offseason. Delpit and Hickman will be joined by Jenkins and Kazee."Guys that are wired to the ball, that can get an extra jump on the ball, we didn't do enough of that in the past. And that's certainly a position we can improve on," Schwartz said.Hickman, an undrafted rookie out of Ohio State in 2023, seems in line to get the first shot at replacing Thornhill at free safety. Hickman started five of 14 games last year, totaling 45 tackles, one for loss, a fumble recovery, a pass defensed and a quarterback hit. He had an interception and three passes defensed in 10 games and four starts as a rookie."He's always been a ballhawk. Last year there was some injuries, things that kept him from being on the field," Schwartz said. "This is a really big season. He's in his third year. He should really hit a stride for us, we're surrounding him with some veteran players."We're a safety-heavy team, but we need Ronnie to really bring it all together. Showed really good flashes as a rookie and he played well when he was on the field last year, but we just need him on the field a little bit more. He's a little bit bigger now. I think that'll help him."The post Defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz wants to see more more turnovers, stops on third down first appeared on BrownsZone with Scott Petrak.