The season is all but over if the Cleveland Browns fire Joe Woods
The Cleveland Browns are a poorly built team with bad schemes. Those are the issues at hand, not the coaching (though it could be much improved with Kevin Stefanski), it’s not the gameplay, and it’s not anything other than the fact the general manager and head coach have failed this team. People thought losing two top-rated defensive backs like Troy Hill and M.J. Stewart wasn’t going to affect the team but it did. The lack of any real success in the draft has hurt this team. The lack of spending any money on defensive tackles hurt this team.
Joe Woods isn’t the reason this team has issues, and firing him only confirms the season is lost. The Browns are 2-4, and rightfully should be 1-5. That’s due to Kevin Stefanski’s lack of faith in honest, good old fashion football having cost this team three wins. A referee oversight is the only reason they’re not dead last in the NFL in the record department. Yes, it’s fair to blame Stefanski and not Woods, but why?
Well, frankly, it’s Stefanski’s defense. He hired Woods to run this defense. The same defense that didn’t work in Minnesota but that’s beside the point. To blame Woods for Stefanski’s lack of oversight, insight, and flat-out ignorance of the defense is a foolish errand. If Stefanski isn’t happy with how the defense is performing, why isn’t he telling Woods what changes are to be made? After all, Woods is a glorified play-caller. He does little else when it comes to coaching the players individually. If he wants to keep his job, he needs to do as Stefanski says. It’s Stefanski’s team and Woods works for him.
Don’t doubt for one minute that Woods isn’t doing something that Stefanski didn’t ask for or approve of.
The defensive backs playing seven yards off, the lack of man schemes, and the lack of blitzing are on the philosophy that Stefanski wants the defense to be about. Yes, Stefanski. I know, it may surprise you, but Stefanski is actually the head coach of the entire team, he’s not the offensive coordinator. Although, with how little attention he seemingly gives the defense, you’d be forgiven if you forgot that.
Everything Woods is doing on defense is approved of by Stefanski. Woods doesn’t run the defense independently of Stefanski’s vision, he runs it as Stefanski wants it. Firing Woods doesn’t solve the problems the defense has. In fact, it makes the defense worse.
That’s because firing coordinators are usually the first sign of a team bottoming out.
Why do coaches fire coordinators who are doing their job?
This scheme has worked, more or less, over the last two seasons. The only thing that’s changed is some guys got paid, others got hurt, and even more got replaced. I’ve been saying for three years that Andrew Berry’s drafts are lackluster and you’re seeing it play out in front of your very eyes. Firing Woods isn’t going to change the fact the players just aren’t good.
In fact, firing Woods is just going to tank the team even further. Sports Illustrated’s Connor Orr wrote about this very thing in 2018 and interviewed a former NFL coach on the topic. The unnamed coach explained why coordinators get fired for just doing as they’re told;
"With the pressure on these head coaches, it’s a way to turn down the heat and make it appear that you’re doing something. It’s somewhat of a cover-your-tail move. Sometimes I understand the temptation. Maybe just a change of the way the plays come in. A new voice. The way the game is called. There are certainly all those possibilities. But far more often than not, it’s going to get worse."
The unnamed coach also goes on to cite why firing a coordinator just makes things worse;
- It breeds fear and contempt among the remaining coaches, fearing they may be next. There’s also tension at home among their respective families over the uncertainty.
- It forces coaches to learn new jobs on the fly, both in terms of coaching assignments and administration.
- It burns out younger coaches.
So firing a coordinator is the first sign of major changes to a team. It’s a head coach trying to blame someone else as much as possible before the same head coach takes his inevitable walk to the gallows soon after.
Do teams turn around after firing coordinators?
Now, you might think, “but hey, it works sometimes”? Sure. Firing your coordinator usually improves the team’s overall winning percentage for the year. From 2008 to 2018, Pro Football History found that of the 25 teams that fired coordinators mid-season, 17 saw an improvement on their record. The 17 teams that fired coaches finished with a full extra win more than the teams that didn’t fire their coordinators.
The average win total saw coaches who held onto their coordinators finish with 4.8 wins, while teams that fired their coordinators finished with 5.92 wins. To be clear, that’s not a 5.92-win improvement over the other eight teams, it’s actually just a 1.1 improvement. Teams who did and didn’t fire their coordinators finished one win apart (4-12 to 5-11), and both with losing records. So yes, firing a coordinator can get a bad team an extra win or two, but to say it turns around the team is a lie.
A team who fires its coordinators is often bad before and after the coordinator. Usually means the coordinator isn’t at fault.
If you’re firing a coordinator mid-season, you’re not turning your season around. Part of that is you’re asking a coach who maybe isn’t as familiar with the finer nuances of the scheme to take on the mantle of someone who was hired because of their nuanced understanding of the said scheme.
This isn’t to say sometimes teams can’t get better with a new voice. They can, but that is almost exclusively on offense, and on a team that has a winning record or near-winning record when the change is made.
Kevin Stefanski is a conservative coach on offense and defense. This is the way he likes his defense to be run. There isn’t a coach in the world that can change Stefanski’s mind on this.
A major real-world example helps prove this point
A bad GM sinks most teams. That’s just how it works. Want further proof, look at Baltimore. The Ravens fired their defensive coordinator Don Martindale after the 2021 season. According to Lineups.com, Martindale had the No. 2 ranked defense in 2020. When he was fired after the 2021 season his defense fell to 19th.
So what happened, did Martindale just stop listening to his boss, head coach John Harbaugh? He did not. So what happened? Well, between seasons, the Ravens moved on from Matthew Judon, Yannick Ngakoue, and Jihad Ward to name a few. They also started to see more and more new GM Eric DeCosta’s fingerprints in the draft.
DeCosta took over in 2019 and of that draft class, two players remain; Justice Hill and Ben Powers. Both men are backups (and Hill is likely done in the league). 2020’s class sees all but two players still on the team, but Patrick Queen (first round) is a bad player, and the rest of the class seems iffy aside from a few. 2021 saw Odaf Oweh go in the first round but he hasn’t produced. 2022 saw Kyle Hamilton get added and he’s played fine. There’s been a few others who are good, solid players (Malik Harrison) but they didn’t find any impactful players who can take over a game.
That doesn’t even include Marcus Peters. Even before his injury in 2021, he fell off. He had a huge 2019 season, and now he’s just an albatross on the Ravens’ neck. Shockingly enough, Peters started playing awful after he signed a new deal in 2019.
Sounds familiar.
To make things worse, the New York Giants hired Martindale for the 2022 campaign. The Giants were 23rd in 2021 in defense, and are now ranked 8th through six games. Where are the Ravens through six games? 22nd.
It wasn’t the coordinator’s fault.
The Cleveland Browns just don’t have the talent
The Browns are in the same place. They gave big contracts to guys who either get glamor stats or have stopped trying (Myles Garrett, Denzel Ward), they spent big money on free agents with an inconsistent history of production at best (Jadeveon Clowney), they also lost a few key pieces in the offseason (M.J. Stewart, Troy Hill), their free agent investments have not paid off (John Johnson III), and their home-grown drafted “stars” are average at best and usually far worse (Jeremiah Owusu-Koramah has a 60.2 PFF score, Greg Newsome 63.2, Grant Delpit 54.2, Jordan Elliot 33.2, etc).
None of this is a surprise either. Garrett has long been called out for his lack of meaningful impact against the opposing offense, Ward has been called inconsistent more than not, Clowney came in with a whole lot of concerns, and the rookies never seemed to have performed well. Though fans screeched “give them time”. This is what time looks like; you know within the first season or two if a player has any potential and talent. You don’t need four years to see if they’ll pan out. You don’t need three and usually, you’re good after a season and a half.
Granted, Owusu-Koramoah, Newsome, and Ward are all capable of much better play. Though, we can’t say the same for the other rookies, second and third-year players.
The Browns are poorly built. That’s not on Woods. Firing him is only the first step to a full teardown, because once the scapegoat is gone, then eyes turn to Kevin Stefanski’s schemes and philosophies and Andrew Berry’s ability to scout talent.
Just like we saw in Baltimore, it’s not the coordinator’s fault his bosses are incompetent.