Will the Cleveland Browns defense be able to figure it out?

The Cleveland Browns defense was supposed to be the strength of the team but after early struggles can they figure things out and rebound?

All season, the Cleveland Browns defense hasn’t been anywhere near as good as most thought it would be. In the past two games against the Falcons and Chargers, the team allowed over 200 yards rushing a piece and didn’t make it hard on either team. Currently, their defense ranks 27th in points allowed, surrendering 25 points per game.

One of the most disappointing aspects of the defense has been cornerback Denzel Ward who signed a major extension in the offseason. Ward has struggled mightily in the run game failing to maintain rush lane discipline and outside contain causing explosive outside runs.

The defensive tackles have been driven back consistently which hurts the linebackers and just makes it easy for opposing teams to run on them. The most frustrating part of the struggles is it seems to be simple issues that shouldn’t be occurring at this level. Players show poor effort, they appear unaware of their assignments or have no communication in coverage — and then there’s the poor tackling.

With the main issues of this unit being about fixable changes and players not playing up to ability, it should be fixable. However, you are over a month into the season and these same mistakes are happening with very little improvement. With that in mind, one might ask why this continues to happen and if the current defensive coordinator can fix it.

So with that said could the Browns consider making a coaching change on the defensive side of the ball with a lack of improvements? If a change is made will that be enough to improve the play or are the issues a bigger problem? It’s an uphill battle that right now is hard to believe they will be able to figure things out.

The Browns have the talent to be better than they have shown even if they are not the elite unit some think they should be.