Since Jim Schwartz took over in 2023, the Browns have been one of the most man-heavy defenses in the NFL. In a secondary highlighted by Denzel Ward - a savant in man coverage - the Browns have paired aggressive defensive line play with sticky man coverage to best opponents. Cleveland is running man coverage at the sixth-highest rate in the league this year at 34.4 percent of the time, per FantasyPoints data.
Sunday's three-turnover, zero touchdown effort against the Dolphins was the opposite of that. Per Browns Film Breakdown, the Browns ran zone coverage 86 percent of the time in Week 7, the highest rate since Schwartz took over.
Browns run most zone coverage under Jim Schwartz in win over Dolphins
Prior to Sunday, the next-highest zone-heavy game from Schwartz in Cleveland came in a loss to the Bengals last year. Their 57.4 percent rate in the London loss to the Vikings is the second-highest zone rate of the current season, a stark contrast from the scheme run in Week 7. Per SumerSports, Cleveland held the Dolphins to -0.804 EPA/play with a 23.5 success rate in those 34 zone coverage snaps, confirming the success of the game plan.
Clearly the Browns did their scouting on Tua Tagovailoa and noticed he has a 122.5 passer rating and averages just under nine adjusted net yards per attempt versus man coverage, compared to a 66.2 passer rating while averaging 3.52 adjusted net yards per attempt versus zone coverage. It would be negligible to run anything other than zone coverage the majority of the game seeing those differences, so it can't be assumed that this will be a trend for Cleveland's defense going forward.
Even if the Browns revert right back to their man-heavy ways of the past couple of seasons going forward, it's inspiring to see them be able to change their identity completely for their opponent and still dominate. While most of the time they can get away with winning with a stout pass rush and good man coverage, being multiple is the key to having success against almost any matchup.