Cleveland Browns named 3rd best defense in recent ranking

The Cleveland Browns have revamped their defense and Jared Dubin has taken notice as he called them the third-best in the NFL behind Washington and Tampa Bay

Last season, the Cleveland Browns defense was a complete mess. No one who watched their games could deny that, and general manager Andrew Berry apparently agreed.

The second-year GM went all-in on improving the defense as he focused on that side of the ball in both free agency and the NFL Draft. The end result is that everyone in Berea feels much better about their defense in 2021, but it’s not just those around the team who are impressed.

Jared Dubin of CBS released his rankings of the top-10 NFL defenses and the Browns came in at No. 3 just behind the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who were second and Washington Football Team who was the No. 1 defense.

The reason for his high ranking of the Cleveland defense is the overhaul done by Berry who made them into one of the more versatile defenses in the NFL.

"“John Johnson III might have been the best free-agent signing of the offseason, a perfect match of skill set and team need. He’ll diversify the team’s coverages with his ability to play center field and rotate into two-high looks, and to make plays on the ball. Cleveland also added both Troy Hill (in free agency) and Greg Newsome II (in the draft) to Denzel Ward and Greedy Williams at corner, plus they have Grant Delpit coming back from injury and Ronnie Harrison for a full season” — Dubin, CBS Sports"

From there, Dubin went on to discuss the signing of Jadeveon Clowney and Takk McKinley as well as Malik Jackson. He even dove into the addition of Anthony Walker and Jeremia Owusus-Koromoah which means all three levels of their defense have been made over.

With the Browns fielding eight potential new starters, the expectations are high — especially when one of the three returning starters is Myles Garrett, a defensive player of the year-caliber edge rusher.

Of course, the game isn’t played on paper. That means that we need to actually see this team in action before we get too far ahead of ourselves. It’s 100 percent true that there’s no longer a ‘weak spot’ on defense and they do have several players who can completely take over a game on that side of the ball.

Still, that’s a lot of change and it will take a few games for them to get their communication where it needs to be.

Once that happens, it wouldn’t be a surprise at all to see Dubin’s rankings come true.