3 Areas Rodney McLeod Helps Browns Secondary

Cleveland announced the signing of safety Rodney McLeod on May 5th, and he brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the position, as well as a couple of other factors.

The Cleveland Browns signed veteran safety Rodney McLeod to a one-year deal. McLeod, the starting free safety on Jim Schwartz's Super Bowl winning defense with the Philadelphia Eagles, provides the Browns much needed depth as well as a third safety that can provide value due to his versatility and wisdom.

Adding McLeod to Cleveland's defense could end up being valuable both on and off the field. The Browns have been missing a savvy veteran on defense that can provide both leadership and playmaking ability. McLeod is also popular with coaches, teammates, and the community wherever he goes.

Frank Reich raved about him in an interview when McLeod first became an Indianapolis Colt in 2022.

"He’s the ultimate pro, and that’s on and off the field." said Reich, who overlapped with McLeod during his time in Philadelphia. “He brings a competitiveness on the field, the way he practices every day, his mentality. He’s a great team player. He’s a leader. I like that intensity and the leadership that he brings as much as anything.”

He's also good friends with current Browns free safety Juan Thornhill, having both played football and graduated from the University of Virginia. These two players alone should provide the team with a vastly upgraded coverage unit compared to the 2022 team. 

Let's take a look at a few of the specific perks that Rodney McLeod will provide for the Cleveland defense in 2023.

1. Positional Versatility

McLeod has played and excelled at both free and strong safety throughout his NFL career, though strong safety seems to be his more natural position. He has excellent overall coverage skills and shows the ability to read routes and "sniff" out play fakes really well. He provides depth at both safety spots for Cleveland, which is something that they've been lacking as of late. God forbid, if something were to happen to either Juan Thornhill or Grant Delpit, the Browns now have a player that should be able to seamlessly step in without defensive regression.

McLeod has also played in the slot at times throughout his career, so perhaps Cleveland could use him there as well depending on the situation.

2. Personnel Flexibility

Though Jim Schwartz is known for his ability to conduct a phenomenal pass rush, he also likes to do some unique things on the back end of his defenses as well. He prefers to utilize a lot of cover-1 and cover-3 structures, which uses a single high, ball-hawking safety whose sole responsibility is to close off the middle of the field. This theoretically makes it easier to negate any type of vertical or deep passing play between the hash marks. 

Schwartz also typically likes to push his strong safeties up closer to the box for a couple of reasons. He believes that it significantly improves the chances of stopping the run, as well as gives the defense an advantage when trying to eliminate tight ends from the offensive gameplan. He's a big proponent of limiting teams' success on third downs, so he focuses on being effective within the first 10-15 yards of the line of scrimmage. If you can consistently shut down an opponents' short-yardage engine, then it's naturally easier to get off the field on third downs.

Rodney McLeod on Browns: I’m Excited to Join This Talented Team

Offensive Coordinators are lining up tight ends in the slot or out wide a lot more frequently each year, and Schwartz understandably prefers to have more aggressive, bigger-bodied players covering them. 

Signing Rodney McLeod will allow Cleveland to be flexible with the type of defensive personnel that they can use, specifically at strong safety. If Schwartz wants to, he can use McLeod at strong safety, and have Grant Delpit play in a SS/LB flex role that can man-up on tight ends out in the slot. 

For example, instead of having to pull a linebacker like Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah out of the box to cover Mark Andrews, they can leave him in there and have Grant Delpit covering Andrews. This allows the defense to keep two true linebackers inside to help with run support, while still covering Andrews with a bigger athlete in Delpit. 

It gives defensive coordinators comfort knowing that they have the ability to effectively deal with multiple offensive personnel groupings, in order to limit player mismatches. We could see Thornhill, Delpit, and McLeod on the field at the same time quite a bit in 2023.

3. Experience, Knowledge, and Leadership

The most important or impactful area where McLeod's presence might be felt is in the locker room. Not only does he bring 11 years of experience to a young defensive back room, but he was Jim Schwartz's starting safety for all five seasons that he was in Philadelphia. He was also a vital player on the Eagles' 2017 Super Bowl-winning defense, alongside Schwartz.

He knows this defense like the back of his hand and will be able to teach and tutor the rest of Cleveland's secondary, which is an underrated aspect of the McLeod signing.

One of the main problems in the secondary last season was pre-snap communication. Some guys would fail to relay adjustment calls before the snap which would cause someone to be caught out of position. Having a savvy vet like Rodney McLeod in the room will hopefully help eliminate those miscommunication issues.

He's also still a very effective player despite being 32 years old. McLeod was ranked as PFF's no.7 overall safety in 2022 for Indianapolis, as well as having the second-best overall coverage grade amongst safeties. He now gives the Browns two super bowl winning safeties, alongside Juan Thornhill.