Browns DBs Coach Jeff Howard's Rough Thursday
When a position coach's press conference draws attention, it's probably not for a good reason and Thursday, Cleveland Browns defensive backs coach and passing game coordinator Jeff Howard drew attention to himself for suboptimal reasons.
Howard's press conference started pretty normally, previewing the upcoming opponent, the Baltimore Ravens. The first few questions he took in regards to the Cincinnati Bengals were fine. He provided a good breakdown of how the defense is designed to work and what went wrong in defending the Bengals flea flicker that went for a touchdown.
Howard was asked a relatively benign question about how the Browns defended Ja'Marr Chase this past week. Coming out of the game, Chase had racked up 10 receptions for 119 yards and a touchdown and the Browns defense drew criticism for allowing that much production when the team lost both Tee Higgins and Tyler Boyd to injuries early in the game.
Chase's production, while impressive, isn't why they lost the game. It is, however, something to learn from for the future.
Unfortunately, Howard was perhaps too honest, didn't communicate well and made things worse.
I know Ja'Marr had 15 targets. I thought we did pretty well on him. I think, you know, Denzel won his fair share of them. I think some of them they caught us, you know in some of the catches that he had, I think caught us in like run calls where we're- and that's a big part of it because you can't just say we're gonna defend Ja'Marr Chase and not respect Joe Mixon and the run game.
So there's stress there. I thought we did pretty well. There's some plays that we left out on the field particularly with him. We could probably more aware of when they are in a situation like that when they have one receiver. So yea, the adaptability of it, trying to- the stress of the defense, trying to put it on the guys and try to defend what they're going to beat you with."
There's a lot here, almost all of it avoidable. Howard is probably thinking the Browns only gave up 23 points and what they gave up was fixable because it amounted to penalties and a few key plays like the flea flicker. The way he answered it, he makes it sound like the Browns defense gave up 50.
For a defensive coaching staff that is already under fire from critics, this only adds fuel. Onlookers are naturally thinking that if Higgins and Boyd are out, it should make it easier to stop the opponent. They're right.
If the Browns believed in their game plan, which seemingly they did, just say that. Chase had 119 yards, Donovan Peoples-Jones had 114. Neither were the end of the world. But to talk in terms of being almost shocked at the idea of having to defend a different set of receivers, it's a bad look. Saying they could probably more aware is an indictment of their ability to adapt on the fly.
He noted in a follow up that they would've defended differently had they known Higgins and Boyd would be out of the game ahead of time. Obvious but also further undermines their perceived ability to adapt.
There's something to be said for the fact they didn't want to stretch themselves too thin in attempting to defend the run, but even that didn't come out clearly in his answer.
The Browns gave up 23 points in the game. 7 came on a drive that included three penalties including a roughing the punter call. 7 came on a flea flicker. Chase is a great player and had a good day, but he's not the reason they lost the game. Howard's ham-fisted answers make it seem like Chase is the reason they lost and gives people who don't believe in this defensive staff ammunition in their arguments regarding competence.
The Browns need a good defensive performance on Saturday against the Ravens to try to make people forget about these answers, because they were bad.
