BEREA: Buckle up, Browns defenders. Gregg Williams is ready to get in your face and provide a culture shock.
“I will not compromise on their effort and their toughness,” he said. “People will talk about, everywhere I go and coach, and say, ‘Look at how fast those guys play.’ Some of it is not raw speed, it’s effort. It’s just effort. It is what it is on their speed, but they don’t loaf. They don’t take plays off, so that’s the hard part of them adjusting to me. That’s the hard part.”
Williams boldly delivered that message and so many more Thursday afternoon when the Browns introduced their new defensive coordinator to local media.
The news conference became an instant classic. It included a 10-minute opening statement and lasted 47 minutes.
The first question was about how Williams has changed since the NFL suspended him for the entire 2012 season because of his role in the New Orleans Saints’ bounty scandal. He immediately became combative and showed the kind of fiery attitude he wants his defense to carry.
“We’re not here to talk about that,” he replied. “What else do you want to talk about? Is there a quote out there about me ever talking about it? So you want to be the first guy who has a quote?”
Actually, there are quotes from a 2015 interview with a St. Louis radio station.
“Use that one, then,” Williams said. “What else?”
The bounty program paid Saints defenders for making big plays and big hits, though Williams insisted during that radio interview it was “never done with anybody trying to injure somebody.”
The system was in place from 2009-11. The Saints won the Super Bowl with Williams leading their defense during the 2009 season, and Williams donned his ring Thursday. In audio from a speech before a 2011 playoff game against the San Francisco 49ers, Williams uttered phrases like “kill the head” while talking about running back Frank Gore and “he becomes human when we f****** take out that outside ACL” when referring to wide receiver Michael Crabtree.
As Thursday’s news conference wound down, Williams said there was enough written about Bountygate when the NFL cracked down on the Saints five years ago.
“Under bad times, under tough times, 2012, who was I?” Williams said. “What did I do? And then who am I now? You judge that. That’s fine. You judge that.”
Williams added the bounty system will be “no part of the Dawg Pound.”
But make no mistake about this: Williams is hellbent on ensuring his defense plays with an edge.
‘Play tougher’
“[I’ll have] a beer or two, no tobacco, no prescriptions hardly at all, but I don’t mind saying this: I’m a competition-aholic, and it’ll be from practice to meetings to games, love to compete,” Williams said. “There’s a lot of things here that we’ve got to stir the emotions and stir the culture on being more competitive, and then once we’re more competitive, maybe we’re lucky enough to be in the position to win.
“From an attitude standpoint, they’re never going to play for anybody that’s going to let them play more attacking, more physical, more aggressive than me. ... My whole life I’ve been trying to speed up your decisions and speed up your toughness and get you to play harder, get you to play tougher, get you to play meaner, and so that will be the way.”
After Browns coach Hue Jackson fired defensive coordinator Ray Horton and replaced him with Williams on Jan. 7, Jackson said he needs growth on defense as fast as he can get it. Under Horton last season, the ultra-young Browns ranked 31st in yards allowed per game (392.4) and 30th in points surrendered per game (28.3) and finished 1-15, the worst record in the NFL.
“I don’t want to predict something that I can’t come up with, but until I get a chance on the field, I would hope that we can improve,” Williams said. “I’ve gone places where they were No. 32 on defense and gone to No. 2 in a year. But there may not be that here.”
What Williams guarantees is that players will listen to him and learn how to meet his demands. He observed some reporters slumping in their chairs during the news conference and promised his players won’t do the same in meetings.
‘Pay attention’
“We’re going to talk about how you sit in your chair when I walk in the room and how you focus and pay attention,” Williams said. “ADHD’s been there for a long time. I’ve been coaching guys like that way before they medicated them. I’m going to medicate them and get them to understand to pay attention.”
They’ll be taught about transitioning from Horton’s 3-4 base defense to Williams’ 4-3 base, even though he prefers to call it “Cleveland-based” because of its versatility. Williams said the Browns will play 4-3, 3-4 and several other alignments in the same game.
There are 42 packages in his playbook and no matter which one he employs, he’s confident his defense will tackle well. He said the teams he has coached have always been among the top three in tackling because he measures “blades of grass after contact” and makes his players practice tackling every day.
“When Coach Jackson has us in helmets, whether it’s just jerseys, we’re tackling,” Williams said. “And then we’re going to populate the ball in that missed tackles come from coaches allowing other guys to loaf. Coaches allowing other guys to play a gap, play fictitious, stupid plays that don’t exist. We are ‘find ball, see ball, get ball.’ ”
If players don’t live by that mantra, Williams said they’ll be benched.
“I can’t cut them, but as long as I’m here, I’m going to decide who plays defense,” he said.
Williams said he wants to empower players and let them have fun “but that fun will only happen when they understand that this is team, and we’re all in this together. There’s no individuals, and [I’m] not going to put up very much with guys that don’t get the fact of, ‘We’ve got play as a team.’ ”
Williams said several Browns players have met with him or called him. He’s told them to contact players from other teams who have been coached by Williams to get a sense of what to expect from the defense’s new leader.
What they’ll realize is he won’t tolerate the status quo.
“If you can’t effect change, you don’t belong at this level,” Williams said.
Nate Ulrich can be reached at nulrich@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the Browns blog at www.ohio.com/browns. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/NateUlrichABJ and on Facebook www.facebook.com/abj.sports.