Defense Isn’t Great… But It’s Good Enough

The expression “defense wins championships” was invented before the creation and popularization of the forward pass, back when football games ended with scores reminiscent of soccer matches. Pass it on. 

Of course, none of this is to say that teams with ‘Big 12’ level defenses are all Super Bowl-bound as long as they do some good things on offense. But rather that, we’re seeing more and more in recent years that teams with stellar offenses don’t need to be great on defense to bring home a Super Bowl, just “good enough” on defense.

We saw this last season, when the Kansas City Chiefs took their middle of the pack defense ranked 16th in yards per game and brought home a Lombardi trophy over one of the most dominant defenses in recent memory. We saw this the year before, when two teams in the bottom half of the league in yards allowed per game both made the Super Bowl. We saw this the year before that as well, when even a team with a great defense like the Philidelphia Eagles needed every last point they could manage in the second highest-scoring Super Bowl in history.

Point being, even great defenses can struggle to slow down great offenses. And if the Browns’ defense can be good enough to get a few stops per game and get the ball back to their overpowered offense, Cleveland could be in good hands. And the Browns, without question, do have the talent to be good enough.

Garrett’s excellence has been talked about at length, but joining him on that defensive line are two solid pieces in Olivier Vernon and Larry Ogunjobi that are strong enough players to take some of the pressure off of Garrett. 

The secondary took a hit with the loss of rookie Grant Delpit to injury, but players like Pro Bowl cornerback Denzel Ward and the newly acquired Karl Joseph at safety should make that loss easier to bear, especially if second-year cornerback Greedy Williams can emerge to live up to his high draft status in 2019.

Cleveland won’t have the strongest defensive unit in the NFL, admittedly. There are some clear holes on that side of the roster– especially at linebacker. But the Browns defense doesn’t need to be a world-beating unit, they just need to be okay– a slight step up from where they were last year. With the addition of some new players, and the return and development of others, they could realistically take that step, and be the defense that their offense needs to thrive.