Cleveland Browns: 3 reasons Kevin Stefanski could be on hot seat

Cleveland Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski is entering his third season with the team. His job is secure now, but could his seat get hot if the team struggles?

If you’ve been a Cleveland Browns coach, especially in the last 20 years you probably understand when you take the job that the seat’s already pretty warm and prepare for it to heat up if you don’t show progress quickly. Head coaches in Cleveland come and go at an average two-year rate.

Before current Kevin Stefanski came to town, we had Hue Jackson, who couldn’t get out of his own way. He always thought he was right and there was never a better coach than he. He was a mess and couldn’t lead the Browns at all. The team responded by not being able to win a game in 2017, finishing 0-16. But Jackson got a third season with the team, but that was short-lived as he was fired eight games into the 2018 season.

Cleveland has had 12 head coaches in the last 23 years. If you do the math, that’s less than two years that they last.

Stefanski got off to the best first-year start of any coach in recent history and that will likely buy him some extra time if the team struggles this year. After Stefanski led his squad to an 11-5 campaign in 2020, the team struggled in year two as they went 8-9.

Now it’s a new season and a new opportunity for the coach to regain the upper hand and take command of his team. His former quarterback, Baker Mayfield, who has finally been traded to the Carolina Panthers, was becoming a distraction to his team and now Stefanski gets a new quarterback in Deshaun Watson to try and mold into what he needs to help move this team forward. Watson has brought in his own distractions so it will be interesting to see how Stefanski and Watson work out. We’ll discuss that part of the story shortly.

Let’s now look at the three main reasons that Stefanski could be on that hot seat this next season. It might not be the hottest seat ever and he may be able to control the temperature of that seat a bit, but it could get uncontrollable quickly.

3 Reasons Kevin Stefanski could be on the hot seat with the Cleveland Browns

3. Head coach history lesson

As we shared above, the Browns have gone through 12 coaches over the past 23 seasons. Just in the last 10 years, the team has had Freddie Kitchens, Gregg Williams, Hue Jackson, Mike Pettine, Rob Chudzinski, and Pat Shurmur at the head coaching position. Williams is the only one, outside of Stefanski who posted a winning mark at 5-3.

Before them, the last coach in Browns history with a winning record was Marty Schottenheimer who was there from 1984 through the 1988 season and had a 44-27 record.  Bill Belichick, currently of the New England Patriots, once coached the Browns from 1991 through 1995 and finished with a sub-500 record at 36-44.

So, the fact that Stefanski has earned a winning record of 19-14 at this point, gives him a bit of breathing room in the end. But based on how quickly the franchise turns coaches over, it’s difficult to predict the final outcome with Stefanski.

Continuity is always helpful to teams looking for a successful outcome. One doesn’t get the feeling yet that Stefanski’s standing with the franchise is in jeopardy. But the first half of the upcoming 2022 season will be important.

I’m sure the organization wants to keep Stefanski and his coaching staff around and establish some credibility inside and even outside the organization. But wins and loses do have some say in the matter. Let’s look at the next reason that Stefanski might be on the hot seat.