Browns: 5 best defensive players halfway through the season

The Browns defense has been bad in 2020 but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t still look at the five most deserving players so far.

The Cleveland Browns defense has gotten even worse from 2019 to 2020, something that wasn’t supposed to be the case with Andrew Berry in charge. The Browns let several key players walk and replaced them with bargain-basement free agents and rookies who fans greatly overvalued. The rookies have not impacted the game in a positive way at all, and the free agents have mostly been a disaster.

That doesn’t mean that everyone on the Browns defense has been bad, quite the contrary. Some players, not many but some players have been downright good. So it’s not unreasonable to take a second from our day and salute them for playing well enough to get noticed.

Keep in mind that the entire defense has looked bad at times, so really, what were you expecting with some of these picks?

#5 – DB Andrew Sendejo

Someone had to go here. Frankly, I don’t think the safeties have been as bad as many, at least over the last three or four weeks. Ronnie Harrison joining the team really changed the back end up of the defense, and Andrew Sendejo has been the most sure-fire tackler the team has. He’s literally the one person who actually wraps and drives. Everyone else tries to “body” the ball carrier.

Assuming the Browns have money to spend, Sendejo won’t be back next year as a starter but considering every other player (not on this list) has glaring issues in their game it’s not hard to see why Sendejo warrants this spot. The problem many fans keep misconstruing is his “lateness” in plays. That’s not the case, however, as he’s always coming in to cover someone else’s blown coverage. With better corners opposite Denzel Ward, you wouldn’t need Sendejo to fly across the field and pull the team out at the last second.

Right now he’s second on the team in tackles with 43, while also posting a forced fumble to his name as well. One gripe that is fair about Sendejo, is that while he’s not getting beat as often as people think, he is not getting turnovers or making big plays very often either. That absolutely needs to change.

If you’re still screeching, keep in mind when it was time to sit a safety, it was Karl Joseph and not Sendejo who got benched. Clearly Kevin Stefanski knows more about who’s making mistakes than fans do and Sendejo was spared. That says a lot.