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So much for continuity in Cleveland.

A year after Browns coach Hue Jackson embraced defensive coordinator at his 3-4 defense, the Browns will implement a 4-3 system under Gregg Williams. For that reason alone, the decision to ditch Horton for Williams makes little sense.

“I know what it looks like and I know what it feels like for everybody here,” Jackson told reporters on Sunday. “‘Here are the Browns again changing out.’ But it is not about that. I am going to say it again, it is about trying to be the best we can be everywhere. I get what it feels like to everybody and I respect that, but at the same time, I think everybody would be disappointed in me if I did not as the leader make tough decisions that I think are going to get us to where we want to go to. It goes both ways so you are kind of damned if you do and damned if you don’t. I do not worry about that. I am worried about getting this organization, this football team and this coaching staff as good as I can get it, and I think that is my charge.”

Still, moving from a 3-4 to a 4-3 is no small project, especially not for a team that is making a big deal out of not changing anything. More (and different) defensive lineman are needed. Fewer (and different) linebackers are needed. Sure, some outside linebackers in a 3-4 can become defensive ends in a 4-3, and some inside linebackers in a 3-4 can become outside linebackers in a 4-3 and some defensive ends in a 3-4 can become defensive tackles in a 4-3. But it’s hardly smooth, and it’s never easy.

If the Browns were going to dump Horton, why not replace him with a 3-4 defensive coordinator? (A fairly good one is available in Denver.)

Making the move even more confusing is Williams’ Bountygate baggage, which extends beyond the scandal that undermined the 2009 playoff run in New Orleans to the cartoonish “kill the head” comments from the night before a Saints-49ers divisional round game in early 2012. Regarded as damaged goods after serving a one-year suspension (and testifying against players as part of the league’s effort to enforce suspensions that former Commissioner Paul Tagliabue eventually scrapped), Williams eventually found work with his longtime friend Jeff Fisher.

Now Williams becomes the defensive coordinator in Cleveland, as if his pattern of misconduct (which possibly traced to every prior stop as a defensive coordinator and head coach) never even happened.

Given where the Browns currently are and where they hope to eventually be, either dynamic would seem odd. Combining the two into one fell swoop for a franchise supposedly obsessed with consistency makes no sense.

“At the end of the day, the whole buck stops with me,” Jackson said Sunday. But the thing is he’s staying and Horton is going.

If nothing else, the move shows that Jackson realizes that another 1-15 season will result in a franchise supposedly obsessed with continuity making even more changes. The real question is whether Williams, whose defense didn’t do much to keep Fisher from getting fired, will make a difference.