Many local restaurants remain very busy for lunch and dinner. What makes them popular with patrons is the quality of the food and the recipes. Everybody offers lasagna. Even Stouffer’s makes a great version. But not everybody cooks it like at this one place. And they run out of the staple dish for the few nights a week that it’s offered on the menu.
It seems it’s an ancient family recipe. And it’s a guarded formula. But the reality is that it’s just a bunch of ingredients sitting on shelves and in the cooler
that don’t come together until a chef makes it happen. The recipe is the key, but the chef is quintessential to its success.
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This is similar to what the Cleveland Browns are now facing. They have an elite defense, which currently is their identity.
The offense has been bad for quite a few years, but the defense slaved away in games and stayed on the field for more snaps than they needed. When head coach Kevin Stefanski was given the pink slip after losing 26 games in the last two seasons, a really good offensive mind was sought after. And found.
Todd Monken has a history of transforming offensive units into great offensive groups. He has done this time and time again with college programs and at the NFL level. Now, he is the head man with Cleveland and is getting fitted for a new set of surgical gloves.
The Browns’ front office interviewed numerous candidates before the decision was made to hire Monken. One of the main interviews was their current DC, Jim Schwartz, who was granted a second interview.
Schwartz is the main reason that Cleveland’s defense is so highly revered this past season and for the past few years since he arrived in 2023. He took the ability of Myles Garrett, and now, the talents of the generational defensive end have won two “NFL Defensive Player of the Year” awards. Think that is a coincidence?
In the first year that Schwartz arrived, the Browns were ranked the #1 overall defense with the #1 pass defense. Numerous injuries slipped them down to the #19 ranking in 2024, but this past season, Cleveland ranked #4 with the third-best pass defense.
On Friday, Schwartz officially submitted his resignation as the DC of the Browns. He had one or two more years remaining on his contract, depending on the report.
A great pass defense doesn’t happen overnight. The same year that Schwartz was hired, the Browns also hired Ephraim Banda as their new safety coach. It is very rare for any team to have a coach specifically involved in coaching the safety group instead of having a DB coach that will cover both groups.
And now, look at the success of Cleveland’s safety room.
Grant Delpit is annually one of the top tacklers. Ronnie Hickman was an undrafted rookie who has blossomed into a very capable midfielder and is the other starter. Another undrafted rookie free agent in this group that is ascending is Donovan McMillan out of Pitt.
In Monken’s first press conference as the new coach of the Browns, he mentioned the defensive position of this team going forward:
“First off, my anticipation is we’re not going to change the system. Very difficult to go against – not planning on changing the system. We’re built for the system that they’re in currently. And I’m not going to get into staffing, because that’s not the time to get into that. But they can be rest assured that we’re going to keep the same system.”
How does this happen when the head chef resigned and has left the building? How will this defensive group maintain its consistency and remain a league powerhouse on that side of the ball? The recipes remain intact, but the guy who gathers and melds all the main ingredients is now missing and isn’t showing up for work any longer.
How is that going to work?
The answer is continuity. The system needs a guy who already knows the workings of the defense. A guy who, each week, has been a part of the meetings and the game plans. A guy who is already in-house and isn’t a stranger to Schwartz’s workings.
Schwartz’s replacement? Elevate safeties coach Ephraim (pronounced Ef-rum) Banda.
Can he be the answer? What are his qualifications?
Beginnings
Banda grew up in Taft, Texas, on the Gulf of Mexico. It is just over two hours due south of San Antonio and three hours southwest of Houston.
His descendants came to the United States from Nuevo Leon, Mexico.
Banda attended Taft High School and played cornerback on the football squad. In his senior season, Taft lost in the Class 5A Division I state quarterfinals. He had offers from several small colleges, but he never followed up and worked instead. Banda was a player/coach of a local semi-pro team called the San Antonio Rhinos.
Years later, he enrolled in a college that was just beginning a football program.
Banda played his college football at the University of Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas. The program was new when Banda joined and was originally a D-2 program. In 2013, the school moved to D-1 and played all of its games in a 6,000-seat stadium. It was a place where Banda had to share a locker with another player, and he bought his own cleats since start-up funds were minimal.
When Banda enrolled at Incarnate Word, he was already 25 years old. He was a walk-on at safety despite being just 5’9” and two years later was named Captain of the special teams group. Now, he was on scholarship.
A knee injury ended Banda’s hopes of being a career football player. In a game against Texas A&M-Kingsville early in the 2011 season, Banda also played special teams like most good tacklers did. He was running up the field to block on a kickoff return and was involved in a collision. The result was a badly damaged left knee. He knew right then that his playing career was over.
He was majoring in sports management and was just in his junior year. He also worked as a bartender at the San Antonio River Walk when he wasn’t studying or going to practice. Banda found out he was really good as a bartender and could make enough money to cover the cost of his classes and whatever living expenses he incurred.
However, he always wanted to coach and knew one day that would become his destiny.
Two weeks after his knee injury, he had surgery to repair a torn ACL, a torn MCL, and a torn meniscus ligament. He had been “that old guy” on the roster now at age 29, but he was viewed as a natural leader who had a passion for the game and also had good communication.
What was next for Banda was to be named a student assistant/coach at Incarnate Word, which was essentially his senior season, but he was able to finish his degree.
College staff break
The following year, an assistant strength and conditioning coach at Incarnate Word, Caesar Martinez, got a job at the University of Texas. Banda was intrigued and found out that the NCAA had doubled graduate assistant spots from two to four.
Martinez worked with Duane Akina, who coached the defensive backfield. With one open graduate assistant spot left, Martinez asked Akina if his friend could get the position. Akina’s response? “Does he work as hard as you?”
Banda was hired at Texas in 2012. The head coach was Mack Brown.
Banda was now in a situation where he had to work long hours as a graduate assistant while attending graduate school. This meant he did not have the time to have an outside job, but at the same time, did not make much.
Then, on December 14, 2013, Brown announced he was stepping down as the head coach of Texas following their bowl game. Banda wondered what that meant for him as a staff member. The new guy was Charlie Strong, who brought in some of his own coaches, one of whom was a defensive coordinator, which meant DC Manny Diaz was out. Banda stayed on at Texas as a graduate assistant and filled a variety of roles, from scripting practices and organizing scouting reports to assisting with the defensive backs.
During his tenure at Texas, Banda coached three players who would play in the NFL, and he also earned a second degree in communications.
In 2015, Diaz was hired as the DC and LB coach at Mississippi State under head coach Dan Mullen. Diaz then hired Banda as his defensive quality control coach. Then one season later, Diaz once again relocated to the University of Miami as their DC under head coach Mark Richt. Later that year, Diaz was a nominee for the “Broyles Award,” given to college football’s top assistant coach.
After Diaz was hired in Miami, he convinced Richt to hire Banda as the Hurricanes’ safety coach, his first full-time assistant coaching position.
Even though Banda was a relatively young man, Diaz had all the faith in him. A defensive back coach is a very critical coaching hire because the group itself cannot make mistakes for the defense. Banda was known for being loyal, honest, hard-working, and making good decisions. Like still driving the car he owned in college, a Toyota Corolla.
On to the DC role
Banda became the co-defensive coordinator with Blake Baker in 2019 when Diaz left to become the head coach at Temple. Baker was almost the opposite of Banda and was considered “polarizing.” The Miami defense was ranked fourth in the nation in tackles for loss and ranked 18th in the nation in pass defense, plus led the ACC in yards per pass attempt at just 6.75 yards.
While with Miami, Banda coached five players who would play in the NFL.
After two seasons, Banda, age 44, was hired as DC at Utah State with added duties as safeties coach. The appeal was that now Banda would be able to call his own defense under head coach Blake Anderson. Banda’s defensive scheme was built on urgency, disruption, and physicality.
It is something of a homecoming for Banda, who is widely known for his work coaching safeties. His style is aggressive, which Cleveland’s secondary really needed.
Banda has elevated the safety room since arriving in Cleveland. He knows Schwartz’s defense and is a capable coach. Moving Banda from one position to the DC is a seamless move and doesn’t interrupt the style and scheme that Schwartz has implemented. He has been a DC twice already, so it’s not like he is the next deer in headlights. In 2024, he was named the DC of the American squad in the Senior Bowl.
The Browns under Schwartz arrived. But a lot of the credit for the pass defense lay solely on the shoulders of both defensive back coaches. Under Banda, the safeties have been partly responsible for Cleveland being ranked #1 in pass defense in 2023, #14 in 2024, and ranked #4 this past season with the third-best pass defense.
And most importantly, Banda isn’t a stranger coming in and trying to figure out Schwartz’s system.
When the head chef leaves, all the recipes remain behind for the next set of cooks to follow.
