It’s time for the Cleveland Browns to make some serious changes

After another embarrassing loss, changes to the Browns’ coaching staff and roster are all but inevitable

The Cleveland Browns have once again found themselves in an all too familiar place.

After an utterly embarrassing 38-15 loss to a New England Patriots team led by rookie quarterback Bailey Zappe, who was 24-for-34 for 309 passing yards with two touchdowns and a passer rating of 118.4, the Browns are now 2-4 on the season and their chances of making the postseason seem virtually nonexistent just six games into the NFL season.

Getting embarrassed at home by a rookie quarterback making his second NFL start is bad enough, but combined with the fact that this football team squandered golden opportunities to be 5-0 prior to the beatdown they just received from Bill Belichick and company, it’s now time for the Browns to very seriously consider making changes to the coaching staff and roster.

The Browns’ offense finally came back down to Earth after consistently being ranked in the top five coming into Week 6. While frustrating and disappointing, a regression was anticipated. When Jacoby Brissett is the starting quarterback of football team, there’s an understanding that he has limitations that put a ceiling on how good your offense can be. To his credit, Brissett had exceeded expectations early on, but he is a backup and journeyman quarterback for a reason and proved why this afternoon. He was 21-for-45 for 281 passing yards with one touchdown and two interceptions to go along with a passer rating of 55.9.

The most disappointing part of the Browns’ season to this point in the season, however, has without a doubt been their defense. To call the Browns defense “disappointing” does not even come to close to describing how unprepared, overmatched, and ill-equipped they are every single week. This is almost the exact same defense that finished the 2021 season playing like a top-10 unit in the league, and came into this season with aspirations of solidifying itself as one of the five best defenses in football.

Not only are they not a top five defense in the NFL, they came into Week 6 ranked 30th in Defensive DVOA and 32nd in rush defense DVOA. Going from a top 10 unit to arguably the worst defensive team in the NFL with most of the same personnel is unheard of. Quite frankly, it is completely indefensible.

Now at 2-4 with their most difficult stretch of football games yet to be played, it’s fair to say that the Browns’ season is over and the time for changes in both the roster and the coaching staff has arrived.

Joe Woods has been the defensive coordinator in Cleveland for the past three seasons and all the same issues the Browns’ defense had in his first season are still very much present in his third. There are constant miscommunications throughout the defense and especially in the secondary. Players are constantly pointing at each other because someone was not where they were supposed to be. The Browns are still absolutely abysmal on third down and in any high leverage situation. If a defense is still having the same problems in year three that they had in year one that is a reflection of coaching, and it’s time for the Browns to bring in someone new on defense.

The 2022 season may very well be a lost cause for the Cleveland Browns, but this is also a golden opportunity to evaluate the roster and coaching staff and make sure they have the right guys in place to be successful in 2023 and beyond.

Hopefully they don’t squander this one too.