I don’t question Gregg Williams’ defensive knowledge.

He’s proven over years and years – even decades – that he really knows what he’s doing in that regard.

But I do question – very much so — the new Browns defensive coordinator’s common sense.

Not surprisingly, Williams was asked right away Thursday at his introductory press conference at Browns Headquarters about his role in Bountygate that caused him to be suspended by the NFL for all of the 2012 season while the defensive coordinator of the New Orleans Saints.

Why wouldn’t he be asked pronto about that by the media? After all, it’s his legacy right now, like it or not. It’s the 800-pound gorilla in the room whose ankle was begging to be kicked. And he media was only too glad to kick it — hard.

Williams can say all he wants about bounties on players having existed for “50 years” in the NFL. That’s not news. Everybody knows that. But he’s the guy who got caught carrying it out, and the league, doing what it had to do, made an example of him.

And not surprisingly, Williams refused to discuss it Thursday, just as he has almost always done since it happened. He is trying to move on. Who wouldn’t want to move on from that nightmare? That’s why he said it has nothing to do with the Dawg Pound.

Why be a knucklehead about it in your welcome presser in a new town? Why not just talk about it, get it over with and make it clear you’re never going there again? Everybody would be OK with that.

There are enough times during the season when a coordinator and media members will tussle back and forth over key issues. It can’t be avoided. It’s inevitable.

So why create a bad situation for no reason?

Williams needs to realize that, like every DC in the NFL, he is made available to the media every week during the season. If media members don’t like you to start with, then they will find ways to validate their opinions.

When coaches treat media members fairly, then they are fair to them in return. Why do you think that, during 2016, Browns head coach Hue Jackson, former top offensive assistant Pep Hamilton and former DC Ray Horton were never really lambasted even though the club finished a franchise-worst 1-15?

But now it’s 2017 and it’s on with Williams, and the first time that his defense falters – and it will – then media members will come right at him with vim and vigor.

And adversarial Gregg Williams will have only himself to blame.