BEREA, Ohio -- Safety Donte Whitner called for Browns owner Jimmy Haslam to keep the coaching staff intact, and said the player "have let them down'' this year.

"Yeah I would like to see that happen but the call is not up to me,'' he said Friday, two days before facing his former 49ers team at FirstEnergy Stadium. "You always understand that second, third year in the system some things can change, something can click. Maybe the players won't make the same mistakes or the same mental errors when we step out there being the third year in the system so we'll see."

He believes that overhauling the staff and scheme is not the answer.

"Yeah a whole new one and then you got all types of other big plays happening so I would say stick with it but who am I?'' he said. "I don't know anything."

Whitner, who spent three seasons with the 49ers and helped them reach the Super Bowl after the 2012 season, still has "total faith'' in the coaching staff.

"Every time we've taken the football field we've been prepared,'' he said. " I can be the first to tell you that. We've known what the opposition was going to do to us. We've known where they want to go with the football. Now It's hard for us as players being prepared to get out there and not know what's going on. Because we study so much.

"Sometimes it's just like we have mental lapses out there. I really do like this coaching staff. They're really, really a hard-working coaching staff. They're young but they're hungry to win. I think just players, we've let them down a little this year.''

He cautioned that firing the staff won't necessarily solve the team's problems -- a sentiment shared by coach Mike Pettine, who's lost 15 of his last 17 games but hasn't had much talent this year.

"A lot of times change will, a lot of times change won't,'' said Whitner. "Sometimes it's not greener on the other side. Sometimes you have to stick it out to get to where you want to get to.''

He likened the Browns situation to that of the Carolina Panthers, who snuck into the playoffs with a 7-8-1 mark last season and are currently 12-0.

"Who's to say we couldn't come out next season with the same coaching staff being in the third year in the system and run off a streak like the Carolina Panthers, because last year...their situation last year wasn't so much better than what ours is right now and they just stuck with it. There was people that was calling for, they didn't make the playoffs last year for their coaching staff to get fired to so sometimes you have to stick it out and wait and see.''

Whitner attributed the Browns defensive woes in large part to Pro Bowl cornerback Joe Haden missing most of the season with his concussion. Haden has been ruled out of Sunday's game against the 49ers, his seventh absence of the season from the head injury. He also missed on game with a broken finger and rib injury.

"Not having Joe and not being able to put him in 0 coverage and take one side of the defense away or add that other guy in the box to stop the run, it's a huge trickle-down effect,'' said Whitner. "If Joe was healthy all season and played up to his capabilities all season then I believe that our defense would be a lot better than what it is right now. You can go to another team and bring a great pass rusher in that's going to give you 16-20 sacks, that's going to change you tremendously.

"That's going to allow you to only rush with four and be able to help put extra guys into coverage. It's a huge trickle-down effect. We wish he was out there, we wish he was healthy and we do need him back as soon as possible because when he's out there and playing his best, our defense is playing at its best."

Aside from that, Whitner attributed the Browns' 29th-ranked defense to lack of execution on the part of the players.

"The main cause is we have some guys that don't do what they're supposed to do as consistently as they're supposed to do it,'' he said. "That's the honest to God truth. Sometimes you could even tell some guys, this play is coming, somehow he still sees some other type play out there. That does happen, so I don't know what else to say about that.

"Sometimes guys do what they're supposed to do. Sometimes they don't. When you tend to not do what you're supposed to do, that's when you tend to get beat.''

He disagreed, however, with the notion that the defense is too complicated.



"That's B.S.,'' he said. "It's the same defense we've been running for two years. Honestly, if I could sit here and show you guys cut-ups from things (we're doing) perfectly in practice and get in a game and doing something totally you didn't practice to do - but maybe it's because I've been playing 10 years. I don't think it's too complex.''

He noted that there are three reasons for making mistakes: "You don't know, you don't care or you don't want to play football. We have to figure that out. These four games right here is where you figure that out. You figure out who are the front runners and who really cares and who really loves the game of football and who wants to play the game of football."

Whitner said the film will show over the next four games who's quit and who hasn't.

"With all of this adversity we have to be able to block this out, go out there and get our jobs done no matter if we're 2-10 or 10-2 and that's what we're paid to do,'' he said. "If you love the game of football it really shouldn't matter about record or playoffs or anything. It should be about the love of the game, going out there and having pride and not laying down and that's what we have."

Whitner, who missed two games with a concussion and has been back for two weeks, admitted that even he "started off a little rocky. A lot of people -- even a lot of you guys -- some people said I should have been benched or I was getting old or whatever.

"As I look around the National Football League I see a lot of people miss tackles. I see even some that you call the best or are perceived to be the best miss tackles. A lot of worse tackles than what we missed earlier in the season. So, I don't know. It's just the game of football. You have to take the criticism, the good with the bad. So that's what I do.''

He refused to pin all of the defensive woes on the young guys in the lineup. The Browns are 31st against the run and 31st in points allowed.

"You can't put it just on young guys, you can't put in on older guys but we're not as detailed as we need to be to be dominant,'' he said.

Whitner, who went to the NFC Championship Game all three of his seasons in San Francisco, admitted that the 2-10 season hits especially hard because it's happening in his hometown.

"It is a bit frustrating,'' he said. "Especially coming home, and being from here, and having to hear people - family members, even my own children - say stuff about us losing, and (asking) when are we going to start winning,'' Whitner said. ''So it has been tough. One thing I can say is, we haven't given up. We have guys that want to get things right.''

And he's hoping some of those same guys are still around next year.