Cleveland Browns: Surprises and Disappointments at the Midseason point

Kevin Stefanski

There were plenty of heads that were scratched when the Browns hired Kevin Stefanski back in January. The team had just gone through the whole “brand-new inexperienced coordinator” thing with Freddie Kitchens, and it didn’t work very well. The Minnesota Vikings had just lost to the San Francisco 49ers in the Divisional Round of the playoffs, scoring just 10 points. Gary Kubiak was thought to be primarily responsible for the team’s offensive success during the regular season, and fans were frustrated with an apparent tendency of Stefanski to become predictable in his playcalling.

When Stefanski announced that he, not offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt, would be calling plays in Cleveland, some fans had flashbacks to last year’s debacle with Kitchens and Todd Monken, where Kitchens would call plays that the team hadn’t practiced during the week leading up to the games, among other grievous offenses.

Stefanski has not been perfect, but he’s been very good with the Browns. His gameplans against the Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers can be questioned, and he does have a tendency to run too often on 2nd-and-long, but overall, there is a clear offensive identity to his team, and they’ve been one of the league’s top offenses in five out of eight weeks.

Before Chubb and Teller went down, the Browns had a simply dominant ground game. Mayfield had a rough start to the season but has looked much better over the past two games. Stefanski’s heavy use of play-action fits Mayfield perfectly.

Eight games is far too small a sample size to decide whether or not Stefanski is a good coach, but the early results are very encouraging. His time management has been exceptionally good, and just from an overarching administrative viewpoint, the team seems organized and focused. There isn’t any outside nonsense, nor is the team inviting distractions like they did in 2019.