Cleveland Browns: 4 scapegoats if things go wrong for team in 2022

Cleveland Browns scapegoat No. 3: Kevin Stefanski

I recently wrote about how Stefanski could be on the hot seat this season. There are several reasons for this, including how the team does in the win column. It always comes down to wins and losses.

The coach is always the easiest scapegoat because he’s the leader. Based on the first two seasons with Stefanski it’s a bit of a mystery on what we have for sure. While his team had a great first year as the team went 11-5 and got to and won a playoff game against their rival Pittsburgh Steelers, the second season was much more of a reality check and not all signs point to a guy that will be entering the Hall of Fame right away.

Stefanski seems to still be grasping at how to be a head coach. He’s never been one before and everything takes time to improve at.

His quarterback got injured in Week 2 a year ago and the rest of the season was spent wondering why the coach was not willing to sit his injured signal-caller for the betterment of the team. Stefanski also continued to force his team into play calls that they weren’t executing well. The blame there goes to the players but also to the coach who continues to try things that aren’t going to correct themselves overnight.

Many fires in the locker room continued to be put out because the team didn’t seem to all be on the same page.

Because of these distractions that included his quarterback and previous star receivers Jarvis Landry and Odell Beckham Jr. all pointing fingers at one another, it didn’t give anyone a real positive feeling that Stefanski had control over the room and his players.

He will be an easy scapegoat this season and because of that, his job isn’t safe, especially with a poor start.

Wherever Stefanski has played or coached in the past he was very successful and considered a very studious and good coach. I think we’ll see that more this season because of some of these offseason moves by the team.