After Historic 2023, Jim Schwartz Won't Allow Browns Defense To Be Complacent

The Browns defensive coordinator is expecting more from last year's No. 1 ranked defense in 2024.

Browns defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz meets with the media ahead of Browns OTA practice on May 30, 2024 / Spencer German

With how quickly the NFL evolves from year-to-year it's unwise for any team to just assume the successes of one season will simply carry over to the next.

That's exactly what Browns defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz is looking to avoid with the unit he oversees in 2024. Cleveland boasted one of the league's top defenses in the NFL a season ago. It was a group that helped lift the Browns to the postseason for the second time in four seasons, highlighted by Myles Garrett winning Defensive Player of the Year for the first time in his career.

While some were speculating that Elijah Moore's absence from OTAs was contract related, the #Browns WR showed up to the volunteer sessions this week and quickly put that narrative to bed: https://t.co/BTAoeuncxS

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For Schwartz though, last year is last year.

"I don’t talk a lot about our position or our defensive rankings or things like that because we sort of judge ourselves against ourselves," Schwartz said. "Just because we were No. 1 in an area or No. 5 in an area, it’s all about us and our improvement as opposed to what the rest of the league is doing. Coming off of a pretty good year of defense, when you look at the film there was a lot of room for improvement, not just in the red zone, but a lot of different areas. So, you know, that’s that sort of challenge. We can’t get complacent, we can’t think that last year is going to mean anything. Right now last year means nothing, everybody’s right down to the bottom of the hill again, and you got to climb it again."

The successes of last season did play a role in the Browns offseason plans though. In attempting the navigate an expensive roster, general manager Andrew Berry prioritized retaining many of the players who helped make their defense so dominant in 2023.

Defensive tackles Shelby Harris and Maurice Hurst are both back. So too is veteran defensive end Za'Darius Smith. Cleveland only lost three starters on defense from a season ago, so the majority of that group is back. The positive side of that is that there isn't a lot of on-boarding to do. Guys already understand Schwartz defense and where they fit in it.

The negative is that guys can't get too comfortable and just assume everything will be the same.

"We’re in a little different spot just because we have some experience in the defense," said Schwartz. But we can’t think we can’t act as if anything’s going to carry over from last year. We have to stay hungry that way.”

Last week, head caoch Kevin Stefanski made a comment that if you ask Schwartz, the Brown didn't do anything well on defense in 2024. It was hyperbolic of course, but these is some truth to Schwartz being the toughest critic of his group.

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So what areas does he think they need to improve the most in 2024?

"Frst of all, you start with red zone," he began. "We played really well in a lot of areas. Red zone wasn’t one, and you sort of dice that up a lot of different ways. And, you know, red zone is one of those things that you don’t get a ton of reps on. We weren’t good enough in the red zone. We had too many mistakes there, and that’s certainly an area that we can improve on."

Deshaun Watson threw in front of the media for the first time today. How did he look and what did he do? My observations from his involvement in day 6 of #Browns OTAs: https://t.co/JaeEgMrcTJ

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There was also the forgettable performance against Houston in the wild card round, that Schwartz hopes they learn from.

"We chased plays in that game," said Schwartz. Instead of letting the plays come to us and making the plays that were there. I thought for the most part of last year, we did a really good job of that, and in that game, we missed an interception fairly early in the game and it just seemed like we were pressing and guys played a little bit out of character instead of just doing their job with physical toughness and effort and some personality, all of a sudden we played a little bit out of character. We started pressing, and hopefully that’s a great learning experience for us the next time we’re in that situation."

If the Browns defense can find a way to build upon what they started last season, it may just find itself right back in that situation next January.