An Aspiration Last Year, Joe Woods Preparing to Utilize Big Dime in 2021

Last year, defensive coordinator Joe Woods said he wanted to play dime with three corners and three safeties but injuries prevented that from happening. Heading into 2021, he discussed some of the details on Cleveland Browns Daily.

Cleveland Browns defensive coordinator Joe Woods was a guest on Cleveland Browns Daily with host Nathan Zegura discussing some of the additions the team made in the offseason. Woods also talked about the team's plans to play dime with three safeties and three corners this season.

Nathan Zegura asked Woods about the prospect of having John Johnson III, Grant Delpit coming back from injury and Ronnie Harrison acquired via trade last year, how he hopes to utilize them.

Woods responded, "That makes you excited, doesn't it?"

 

He continued, "The thing with having those three guys: I'm used to running a lot of dime. In the past where I was at, we ran over 400 snaps of dime a year. Last year, we only ran 16 snaps. So you can see the impact we could have and it's really about putting more speed on the field, about creating matchups where you feel like you have the advantage.

It'll work out once we get them all together in terms of where they're at, but I feel like all those guys have the versatility to play either safety position or the dime."

The ability to play as much dime as Woods is accustomed or more may come down to the Browns ability to plays with leads as well as putting opponents into obvious passing situations.

This offseason, the Browns have put a significant amount of effort in changing over the entire defense, but specifically their secondary. Johnson was the biggest acquisition of the Browns offseason, allowing them to potentially ease Delpit into a role coming off the injury. It may also allow him to be focused on one area, reducing the overall workload as they try to get his young career going.

Co-host Beau Bishop mentioned to Woods about the similarity in their sizes and athletic capabilities and how that could play a role in confusing the opponent.

"They are very similar," Woods said. "They could be series to series, game to game. We could let those guys move around on their own. It's that type of package that we can create with them just because of their versatility.

Last year, you saw a little bit of Ronnie and we moved him around and played multiple positions. You're aware of what John can do and obviously with Grant coming out of college, he was covering receivers in the slot, so they can do it all and I'm very, very excited just to get going with them."

Johnson was the green dot player for the Rams, which seemed to be a bonus to what the Browns would want, given the fact he'll be on the field consistently. When asked, Woods said it's something they would consider.

"That would be something we would consider based on how things go," Woods responded. "I feel like we'll be okay if we put the green dot on the linebacker. We considered that last year at some point during the season. As we work through it- training camp, get into preseason, we'll make the call on what we want to do there."

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