The Cleveland Browns and the New York Jets are as close to schematic mirrors of each other as you can find. When the teams face on Sunday afternoon in Cleveland, both sides of the ball will be very familiar with what the other side normally runs at its core level.
The Browns and Jets both run the wide zone scheme and have coaches that reach all the way back to Mike Shanahan, the coach that made this offense popular. Meanwhile, on the other side of the ball, Jets’ head coach Robert Saleh and Browns’ defensive coordinator have worked together previously and both use a lot of zone defense and one specific zone defense specifically.
Browns’ head coach acknowledged this when he said their defense and Jets’ defense share some DNA, but the truth is both sides of the ball share some DNA. We take a look at how the coaches in this game were influenced and how their coaching trees track back to the same sources.
#Browns coach Kevin Stefanski said their defense and #Jets defense share some DNA after coordinator Joe Woods spent time with 49ers with Jets coach Robert Saleh
— Scott Petrak ct (@ScottPetrak) September 14, 2022
Offensive similarities
Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski has worked under several coaching regimes during his time with the Minnesota Vikings. However, the wide zone scheme that Stefanski has deployed in Cleveland came from his time working with Gary Kubiak in Minnesota.
In late 2018, Stefanski was named interim offensive coordinator and took on the position full-time in 2019. Kubiak was brought in as an assistant coach and helped Stefanski put the wide zone into place. Kubiak is a disciple of zone blocking from his Super Bowl-winning days with the Denver Broncos where he worked closely with Mike Shanahan. Mike Shanahan popularized the zone blocking scheme with great success.
Now we can draw a line from Shanahan back to the Jets current offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur. LaFleur has spent most of his career with Kyle Shanahan (Mike’s son) running the same zone blocking concepts. His journey in the NFL started in Cleveland when he served as an offensive interim coach under offensive coordinator Shanahan in 2014.
LaFleur would follow Shanahan to Atlanta and then San Francisco. When the defensive coordinator from Shanahan’s 49ers, Robert Saleh was hired in 2021, he brought LaFleur and the outside zone scheme to the Jets to be his offensive coordinator.
Stefanski and LaFleur both can trace their offensive influences back to Mike Shanahan. Although, both teams do run zone blocking schemes they certainly have their differences. It makes the match-up on Sunday an intriguing one though considering the defense both teams are facing sees a variation of what they are running every day in practice.
Defensive Similarities
The line between the Browns and Jets defensive similarities doesn’t go quite as deep as the offensive side of the ball does. However, we arrive at schematic parallels.
Saleh picked up his defensive system during his three years on the Seattle Seahawks staff. Seattle’s defense at the time was the legendary “Legion of Boom.” Those defenses made popular a hybrid cover 3 defense, now referred to by most as “Seattle Cover 3.” Saleh would take that “Seattle Cover 3” and put it to good use when he was hired by Kyle Shanahan to be his defensive coordinator. Shanahan and Saleh served together on the same Houston Texans staff from 2006-2009. That team’s head coach was Gary Kubiak.
Cleveland Browns defensive coordinator Joe Woods served as the defensive backs coach under Saleh in San Francisco where they had success running the “Seattle Cover 3” scheme.
We arrive at the defensive connection. Joe Woods has used the “Seattle Cover 3” scheme with the Browns at times and Saleh continues to make it a big part of what the Jets do defensively.
The Browns and Jets are schematically similar on both sides of the football. The coaches are rooted in the same concepts and influenced by similar if not the same coaching trees. It will make for an interesting chess-match come Sunday.
