The Cleveland Browns officially have their new defensive coordinator, as head coach Todd Monken chose Atlanta Falcons defensive pass game coordinator Mike Rutenberg to fill Jim Schwartz's shoes. 

Despite being an external hire, Rutenberg comes to Cleveland with plenty of familiarity with Schwartz's wide-nine defensive front, following similar principles over the years under newly anointed Tennessee Titans head coach Robert Saleh. 

Monken made it clear he didn't want to reinvent the wheel on that side of the ball, hiring Rutenberg means he won't have to. Still, the 44-year-old can bring his own twist to the scheme that's been so successful here in Cleveland. 

Some key figures from Rutenberg's previous stops will provide some context for what his approach will look like. 

It's hardly a secret that the Browns love to play man coverage on the back end – rightfully so with Denzel Ward and Tyson Campbell. Under Schwartz, Cleveland led the league in man coverage two out of the last three seasons, including 2025. 

For Rutenberg, man coverage still remained a focal point with the Falcons, but not quite as much as it is for the Browns. Atlanta was in cover one 17% of the time last season, a figure that, ironically, ranked 17th in the NFL. 

Now, those rates were much higher when he worked under Saleh as a linebacker coach with the New York Jets. In 2024, the Jets ran cover one 27.1% of the time, good for 7th overall. One year before that, the Jets ran cover one 26.6%, which was 5th overall.

Rutenberg has certainly been on staff for some heavy man defenses before, so we'll see if he gets back leaning on it even more than he did this past year in Atlanta. 

While man was obviously the Browns overage of choice, Schwartz did still find certain opportunities to work in some zone looks, and when he did, cover three was his preference.

Cleveland ran cover three on 28.8% of its defensive snaps, which still came it at 31st in the NFL, just to underscore once again how much man the Browns played. The Falcons actually ran the third most cover three last season, doing so on 45.7% of snaps.

Rutenberg also leaned on quarters coverage a lot, too, as Atlanta's 22.1% of quarters coverage came in No. 2 overall in 2025. Man is likely to still be the Browns bread and butter, but get ready for some increased zone looks as well. 

While Rutenberg's primary focus was on how to defend opposing passing attacks, oftentimes his coverages were tied to different blitz packages. Atlanta was one of the top blitzing teams in football at a clip of 33.9% in 2025.

That figure was second highest in the NFL, a notable uptick from the Browns' blitz rate last year, which came in at 27.8%, good for 11th overall in football. 

It will be interesting to see how much of that aggressive philosophy follows him to Cleveland. One thing that's really noticeable on tape is how much Rutenberg disguises certain overages and even blitzes from the back-end guys. There are likely to be some unique looks from the Browns second and third levels in 2026. 

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