CLEVELAND, Ohio -- New Browns coach Gregg Williams said the search for effort and focus is a full-time time occupation, not a Sunday situation.

"We really do that day by day by day," Williams said after losing his debut as the Browns boss 37-21 to Kansas City on Sunday.

"Seriously, it is not just in the game, (it's) every day in how you respond in a meeting, how you respond in practice. The philosophy that we have had and the philosophy that I have been raised with in this league being around some really, really good coaches on the staffs that I have been on is that is an everyday thing.

"You do not want to wait until Sunday and see it. You want to see it throughout the week. That is what they have been doing all week long."

OK. So why does linebacker Jamie Collins so often look like he's not going as hard as he can?

This is one of those things that Browns fans are talking about, and the goal here, whenever possible, is to take what's happening out there and bring it to the Browns. If fans think Collins looks like he's jogging to too many plays, then, what's the deal with Collins looking like he's jogging to too many plays?

My direct question to Williams on Sunday was whether Collins was going as hard as he could.

"Jamie is doing a lot of things," Williams said. "Jamie is handling a lot of things for us. He is being the vocal person on the field. He is the quarterback on defense, and he is playing like our quarterback."

That's not really an answer about effort, but I wasn't going to ask Williams repeatedly to publicly criticize a player in his first postgame news conference as the boss. So I asked once and then made it clear to the Browns that if anyone wanted to inform me otherwise about Collins, my ears were open, because I was going to question his every-down effort.

So here we are.

It seems like Williams likes Collins. He was the first player he mentioned by name after the game, turning a question about the rash of defensive injuries back toward the veteran linebacker. With Joe Schobert out for his third game, and Christian Kirksey leaving in the second quarter with a hamstring injury, Collins took on the role of what Williams called the quarterback of the defense, setting the defensive alignment.

"We have to tackle better, have to keep the ball in front of us better and have to keep on playing. Those guys did. They never blinked," Williams said. "I thought Jamie Collins did a really good job of continuing to keep people in the game that had to come in and out of the huddles. He did a really good job with that."

I thought Collins looked overmatched and underwhelming on a first-quarter tackle attempt on Kansas City running back Kareem Hunt. Collins reached Hunt around the 35-yard line and was left flailing at Hunt's wrist. Hunt continued to race to the end zone, turning a screen into a 50-yard touchdown.

So Williams is publicly praising Collins, no one from the Browns privately disputed that, and he led the Browns in tackles with seven.

So why be critical of Collins, who according to spotrac.com, the website that tracks professional sports contracts, is the sixth-highest paid linebacker in the league on his deal averaging $12.5 million per year?

It's hard to believe your eyes are lying.

Get on Twitter and type in Jamie Collins. Everyone with a TV saw a guy who looked like he was giving half-effort at best. The plan was to ask Collins about this, but he was gone before reporters were allowed in the postgame locker room, leaving behind in his locker two plastic cups filled with pineapple pieces, a plastic white fork sticking out of one tropical cube.

Collins seems to have a habit, one that didn't just show up Sunday, of what I'm going to call "backgrounding." It's what happens when you don't get close enough to a play to get posterized -- which is what everyone calls it in basketball when a defender has a dunk or great offensive play made right on his head.

Collins usually doesn't get posterized. You have to throw yourself into the play for that to happen.

Too often, he doesn't get close enough to the play to get into focus for the poster.

He's just close enough to be in the background. He's there as another Browns defender gets posterized.

Watch this perfect touchdown throw from Patrick Mahomes to tight end Travis Kelce, who catches it over Browns safety Jabrill Peppers. Peppers is responsible for the coverage, and he plays it pretty well, beaten by two elite offensive players. There, floating in the middle of the field, turning to watch Kelce make the grab without making any kind of play on the ball, without jumping to try to tip the pass or make a hit to jar the ball loose, is No. 51.

Peppers, who tried, got posterized. Collins got backgrounded.

Maybe there was nothing Collins could do there. Floating in coverage in the middle of the field, he couldn't be everywhere at once.

But Collins seems to float a lot. He wasn't quite there on Hunt's 1-yard run at the goal line, floating in the middle just enough to be easily blocked by a tight end as Hunt scored.

I watched Collins exclusively for about three-quarters of the game Sunday, and his plan often seems to be to get in the area of a play but hope someone else makes the tackle. If that doesn't happen, or the ball carrier cuts right into him, he'll grab him.

But, at $12.5 million, he doesn't seem to mind letting someone else make a play.

Williams didn't complain about Collins. The pineapple couldn't speak on Collins behalf. This column would be harsher if Collins had been able to say his peace.

But Williams, who demands effort from his players from the moment the alarm clock goes off, has seven more games in charge here. The Browns have a future and a plan. On Sunday, they had a new quarterback on defense that a lot of people thought was phoning it in.

Williams said he looks for effort day by day. You wonder how he could have seen it from the linebacker running the defense Sunday.