3 standouts from Cleveland Browns minicamp

2. The Browns safeties look much different

Last year, safety was a problem spot for the Browns and they surrendered several big plays due to a lack of communication on the backend. This offseason, they focused on correcting this by signing Juan Thornhill and Rodney McLeod while saying goodbye to John Johnson III and Ronnie Harrison.

That alone makes things look different in the secondary but there were more changes as well. Jim Schwartz, who was hired as defensive coordinator this year, is moving the players around. While Johnson played deep for the majority of the year in 2022, Thornhill, McLeod, and Grant Delpit have been moving all over the field — and learning every spot.

Schwartz brought in a new safeties coach Ephraim Banda, who previously served as a defensive coordinator with Utah. He said that the cross-training accomplishes several things, including keeping players engaged and active.

“It’s the monotony of something that allows guys to kind of drift and just kind of get casual. When you create new things for them. I don’t care what you’re doing, whether you’re doing what you guys are doing for a living or a football player, if you create new opportunities and new things for them, they’re a lot more in-tuned and locked in and it’s more fun for them. So we have not gone strong safety or free safety this entire camp for that purpose.” — Banda on the safeties play via Ashley Bastock of Cleveland.com

If these guys stay engaged and continue to work together — and understand what each other's role is — there should be a lot of hope that the pass defense should be improved in 2023.