'You never feel like you know it all': Browns DT Quinton Jefferson gets better with age

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. — Quinton Jefferson's career is one that seems to run opposite of how things normally work in sports.

What normally happens for a player is their best years statistically are often toward the front or middle of their career. However, when one looks at the first eight seasons in which Jefferson has played, it's been over the defensive tackle's last three seasons where he's seen his best numbers, especially in terms of sacks.

"I think really it's personal growth, because my first few years I was just a little banged up," Jefferson said in an exclusive interview with the Beacon Journal last week at The Greenbrier. "So once I just got healthy and was able to just catch my stride, I feel like I just kept getting better and better. I take pride in you never feel like you know it all, never feel like you arrive. I just constantly try to find new ways to reinvent myself, just get better and better as a player. I had the opportunity to play with some great players and just take a little bit from everybody."

A year ago with the New York Jets, Jefferson posted a career-high six sacks. It's that production that led the Browns to sign the 31-year-old in the offseason to add even more veteran help on the interior of the defensive line .

Those six sacks came on the heels of a 5.5-sack season with the Seattle Seahawks in 2022. The year before that, he recorded 4.5 sacks with the Las Vegas Raiders.

That's 16 sacks in the last three seasons for the 6-foot-4, 291-pound Jefferson. Over the first five years in the league — the first four in Seattle — he had 10.5 sacks combined.

"Q’s done a nice job," head coach Kevin Stefanski said. "A veteran, has played in different schemes and systems. Understanding how we play is a big part of it right now, but excited about what he brings. And it’s early in camp, but excited about having a veteran in there."

Jefferson's growth really can be chalked up to availability as much as anything else. The Pittsburgh native and former 2016 fifth-round pick of the Seahawks out of the University of Maryland only played in nine combined games in his first two seasons with Seattle.

The big injuries for Jefferson were not one, but two separate anterior cruciate ligament tears, one while he was at Maryland and one as a rookie in 2016. However, after playing six games in 2017, he would not miss more than two games in a season until a Week 15 hip injury last year landed him on season-ending injured reserve.

Those early injuries, though, were something that led Jefferson into some deep reflection.

"I had to really just stop and think, what the hell am I doing?," Jefferson admitted. "I got to figure out how to stop this from happening. Really just from the ground up, just taking care of my body and even my mental. The game is, everybody's athletic, so it's like, what's going to separate yourself a lot of time is that mental aspect. Whether just making sure everything's good in your home place and just knowing your plays and just being a student of the game."

The thing Jefferson had going for him was the teammates he had around him in Seattle. He landed with the Seahawks at the height of their "Legion of Boom" defensive days, which provided him plenty of veterans to show him the ropes.

Two Seahawks in particular — Michael Bennett and Cliff Avril — became Jefferson's sages. Their advice went beyond just on the field to his role with his, at the time, three children.

"Those two guys, I credit them with all my success and all my production I was able to do on the field to those guys," Jefferson said. "They took me under the wing and really showed me how to be a pro on the field as well as off the field. How to have balance with your life. I have four kids. I came in with three kids, so Mike really just showed me how to have really that work-life balance."

Jefferson, in some ways, now finds himself in the role of Bennett and Avril. He's the veteran on a defense that's among the best in the league in Cleveland.

The addition of the nine-year pro provides the Browns with a little more pass rush from the interior of the defensive line. That could add a dimension to the defense that only gives their ends, specifically reigning NFL Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett, more openings to really wreak havoc on quarterbacks.

"I look forward to seeing what he can do on the inside when the time comes, but you have to have that push in the middle to avoid the QB stepping away from a strip sack or a big hit, a big play to be made," Garrett said. "So with him being able to provide pressure and Quinton stepping up from 6, 5, 4 yards, that'd be perfect. That's when you rushers start working together and you start seeing six sacks games.  7, 8, 9  sack games. So we look forward to putting up numbers like that."

Jefferson's background with the Seahawks gives him a fascinating perspective through which to view the Browns' defense. Like now with Jim Schwartz in Cleveland, he also played for a defensive genius in Pete Carroll in Seattle.

Both of those defenses seemed to almost taken on the personality of the men who ran them. Both carried themselves with a swagger that matched their players', which carried over into their defenses' play.

"They are two men who are confident in themselves and what they do, and they've done it at the highest level," Jefferson said. "They won championships. They know what winning looks like, so it's like they have the blueprint. So I would carry myself with that same swag and confidence as well. I appreciate them both because they let guys just be themselves. They understand that when a guy is comfortable and can be himself, you can get the best out of them."

Chris Easterling can be reached at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com. Read more about the Browns at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/browns. Follow him on X at @ceasterlingABJ

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: 'You never feel like you know it all': Browns DT Quinton Jefferson gets better with age