The Browns are riding a three-game losing streak into this Sunday’s game against the Ravens and the defense has been a big reason why they’ve been falling short so far this season.
The Falcons and Chargers both posted more that 200 rushing yards in their wins over Cleveland and Patriots rookie quarterback Bailey Zappe threw for 309 yards last Sunday, so the unit has struggled in all phases while allowing the fourth-most points in the league to this point in the season. On Thursday, defensive coordinator Joe Woods said the group is “underperforming” across the board and called the struggles “really hard to explain” because of how good everyone felt coming into the season.
“I thought there would be more things we could do at this point,” Woods said, via Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com. “Not that more means better, but we do have some young guys in there playing for us at all three levels of the defense, and they’re learning too. I thought we’d be further along obviously. There are a lot of things we are trying to clean up, and we just have to clean them up in a hurry.”
Injuries have kept some key veterans out of the lineup, but young players haven’t made the kind of progress that the Browns were looking for this season and the combination has led to the poor results that Woods is trying to fix. If that doesn’t happen soon, the second half of the Browns season will not hold much promise.