Friday, January 25, 2013
More buzz on Browns' scheme
By Tim Kavanagh
UPDATE: In comments to the media Wednesday, Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam may have let the cat out of the bag in terms of the club's defensive scheme for 2013.
Specifically, per Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Haslam acknowledged that new DC Ray Horton "will probably switch to a 3-4 defense."
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After the Browns elected to hire Rob Chudzinski as their new HC, there has been buzz that the club would be moving to a 3-4 defense, and that speculation ramped up after they tapped Ray Horton to run their defense. Though Horton has experience in other defensive orientations, his most recent work came in a 3-4 alignment with Arizona and Pittsburgh.
However, there has yet to be a final decision on how the team will line up their front seven on D, and in fact, the most likely scenario appears to be a hybrid look.
"We feel like [with] the guys here, there's some flexibility with the 4-3, 3-4," Chudzinski explained Wednesday, per the Akron Beacon Journal. "And again, just to reiterate what I've said before, so much nowadays whether you're in sub or nickel personnel or whether you're in base, people are playing both. As we work through this, we'll work through whether it's going to be 4-3, 3-4 in base. ... Ray can do anything. He can coach any of those different schemes, and we're going to utilize a little bit of everything. I think that word 'hybrid' is used. I don't know if that's the accurate term, but there will be 4-3 principles and 3-4 principles in the defense."
No matter how the defense lines up on gameday, the Browns need to add an edge pass-rusher complement to Jabaal Sheard, and they've got the cap space to invest in one in free agency in addition to using a high draft pick on the position.
