'How can we get better?': Joe Woods seeking answers to Cleveland Browns' defensive issues

BEREA − Joe Woods sat down behind the microphone and immediately directed the attention to his face.

“See my eyes?," the Browns defensive coordinator said Thursday. "They’re red. I’m up.”

No one is more invested in fixing the struggles which have plagued the Browns' defense than the guy who's in charge of that defense. Woods also knows that, as that side of the ball continues to derail opportunities to win games, the heat is turning up on him as well.

It's not the first time it's happened to Woods in his three years in the role. It was last year, after a 45-7 loss at the New England Patriots in mid-November, the criticisms around him may have been as loud as ever, including from some of his best players.

The Browns turned things around a year ago after that loss to the Patriots. Now, as the Patriots come to Cleveland for Sunday's game, Woods is focused on blocking out the noise and trying to get things turned around on his side of the football.

"I’m just telling the truth it’s just I don’t worry about it," Woods said. "Like I know it’s a problem and to me in the NFL, it’s fair. The NFL is fair. You have an opportunity, I feel like the organization provides us with good players on defense at all three levels. Right now we’re not performing well. There’s stretches where we’re doing good things but we’re not consistently playing well for 60 minutes. And it just comes with the territory, you know what I mean?

"But for me having red eyes is about just studying, I’m always like that, I’ve always been like that for 31 years coaching. But in terms of worrying about that, you can’t. Because if you worry about it, then it affects your decision-making, it affects your thought process. So I just put my head down and say, how can we get better?"

The defense has been trying to answer that question all season. The problem has been that it's been multiple questions they're trying to answer.

The first couple of games, the questions centered on the lack of communication in coverage. The Browns were getting gashed on big pass plays that led directly to touchdowns and, against the New York Jets, a loss.

The past couple of games, though, the questions haven't really been about their coverage skills. Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert completed 22 of 34 passes for 228 yards with a touchdown in last Sunday's game, but that wasn't the primary cause of the Browns' problems.

What's doomed the Browns in their two-game losing streak against the Atlanta Falcons and Chargers was their inability to stop the run. It was especially damning against the Chargers, who entered the game last in the league in rushing and finished the afternoon with 238 rushing yards.

The answer, in a lot of ways, is actually pretty simple. It's about each one of the 11 players on the field doing their jobs and not trying to do too much.

"We've got a lot of playmakers on the defense, obviously, so it gets frustrating sometimes when the ball is not being ran your way, thrown your way, you’re trying to do extra stuff to make a play," cornerback Greg Newsome II said. "But sometimes you’ve just got to … if your job, like I said, is secondary contain, make sure I’m back there in case the ball breaks out. And if your job is to set the edge, make sure you’re there to set the edge. We say no 'Peeping Toms' so don’t do this and try to get in another gap. That’s the main issue, but it shouldn’t be a hard fix.”

The Browns have spent this week focusing on one thing they believe should help the issue. That's been the missed tackles which have opened the door for big plays.

There's been close to 20 missed tackles in the past two games, each one of those providing extra yards to the offense. The emphasis has been on fixing that, starting with fixing what the Browns themselves are doing wrong.

"Yeah, I mean, it's about just wrapping up, tracking, being able to run your feet through the tackle," linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah said. "Making sure we execute, get more hats to the ball. Gang-tackling. Just doing our job, it goes back to that. Goes back to fundamentals. We've been talking about that through now. That's what it goes back to."

Tackling has been given an extra emphasis this week from the Browns coaches. It's not just what they do on the field, even though they can't actually tackle in practice.

In order to drive home his message, Woods put together a film of about 15 plays, all from this season, that showcased the issues with tackling. He believes the film helped to showcase the troubles and what they can do to fix them.

"I think we have to understand, you have to have a tackling plan, and understand what type of tackle that you need to make," Woods said. "Do I have the guy in the hole and he has nowhere to go? Or is he in the open field. I’ve got to put myself in position and get the guy on the ground. So a little bit of that is what I saw. I went back and I watched every missed tackle we had, and I put the tape together. Showed the examples, and I wanted to talk to the whole group so they understood it."

Understanding it is one thing. Executing it is a completely different thing.

The Patriots come to Cleveland this week with a rushing offense that is ninth in the league, averaging 138 yards a game. Rhamondre Stevenson is coming off a career-best 161 rushing yards in last week's win over the Detroit Lions.

Stevenson may be the perfect way to measure what the Browns have learned. He was key to last year's defensive meltdown, rushing for 100 yards and two touchdowns in that game.

A year later, Stevenson and the Patriots get to face a Browns defense once again at a crossroads. The man in charge of fixing that defense doesn't know what's going to happen Sunday, but he can testify to what's being done to try to make Sunday's performance better than the previous weeks'.

"I mean, each year is a different challenge and I promise everybody we're trying to do everything we can," Woods said. "OK, right now it’s not going well in terms of the consistency, in stretches we’re doing things. But I don’t worry about it. You can't and I've been around in my coaching career, just different people that maybe they listened to it more. And I’ve seen what it’s done to them. I just believe in what I'm doing. I believe in the coaches that I have around me, just because of the stuff that we've done. I believe in the players. And I just feel like if we all work together to correct the issues that we’ll get it headed in the right direction."

Contact Chris at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com.

On Twitter: @ceasterlingABJ

Patriots at Browns

Time: 1 p.m.

TV: CBS

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Joe Woods looking for answers to Cleveland Browns' defensive issues