CLEVELAND, Ohio — Myles Garrett will have yet another defensive line coach as he heads into his eighth NFL season.
The Browns hired former Texans defensive line coach Jacques Cesaire, a league source told cleveland.com.
He replaces Ben Bloom, who took over that role from Chris Kiffin, current Texans linebackers coach, in Cleveland in 2023. Bloom might return to his previous role as Browns run game coordinator.
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Myles Garrett will have yet another defensive line coach as he heads into his eighth NFL season.
The Browns hired former Texans defensive line coach Jacques Cesaire, a league source told cleveland.com.
Under new attack-minded defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz, the Browns finished sixth in the NFL with 49.0 sacks. The Ravens were first with 60. The Texans finished tied for 13th, but set a club record with 46 sacks – only three behind the Browns.
Cesaire will be tasked with getting a career season out of Garrett, who’s a leading candidate for AP NFL Defensive Player of the Year. Garrett finished tied for No. 7 in the NFL with 14.0 sacks, two shy of his club record 16.0 set in each of the previous two seasons. But he tailed off at the end, notching one sack in his last six games after a five-game drought. He also had no sacks and three pressures in the 45-14 wild card loss to the Texans. Cesaire was in the final year of his contract with the Texans but decided to pursue other options.
Cesaire, 43, was signed by the San Diego Chargers as an undrafted free agent out of Southern Connecticut and started 66 games for them at defensive end over the next nine seasons, notching 220 tackles and 12.5 sacks.
He began his NFL coaching career as Chargers defensive line coach from 2015-19 before spending 2020 and 2021 as Bill assistant defensive line coach. In 2022, Lovie Smith hired him to coach the Texans defensive line, and DeMeco Ryans retained him when he took over in 2023.
The Texans finished sixth against the run in 2023 with 96.6 yards per game, but allowed Jonathan Taylor to rush for 188 yards and a touchdown in the Week 18 victory over the Colts. In their 34-10 divisional-round loss to the Ravens, Houston allowed 229 rushing yards, including 100 and two TDs by NFL MVP candidate Lamar Jackson.
During his season-ending press conference, Ryans stressed the importance of his defensive front.
“The front, again, is everything for me, and we’ll invest a ton of resources into the front,” he said. “If you want to play good defense, your front has to be elite, and that’s what I envision us playing: elite defensive football.”
The Browns are aiming for the same thing, and are confident that Cesaire can help them deliver it.
