Colin Cowherd just missed the mark on the Browns (again)

The Cleveland Browns have cultivated an image — the embodiment of losing — that has proven impossibly difficult to shed. It's hard to argue with the facts. Since their reincarnation in 1999, their 146-290-1 record stands as the worst of any of the league's 32 teams. So bad, in fact, that the franchise with the second-most losses over that time period — the Raiders — has taken 25 fewer 'Ls' than them.

The picture that's been painted is not a pretty one. This pervasive stink has followed various iterations of coaching staffs, rosters, and front office groups. It's made the Browns a prime target for ridicule from talking heads for years. Fans are used to the rhetoric by now: so-and-so player should refuse to be drafted by the Browns; or Cleveland is the place where coaches' careers come to die.

While it's easy to pile on, the truly ardent Browns fans are cognizant of the fact that coaches and players are not blameless for their failures in the Factory of Sadness. Sure, the Browns have been a dysfunctional franchise and made a litany of boneheaded decisions. That doesn't change the fact that certain players or coaches have failed to meet expectations for any NFL franchise, and failing in Cleveland shouldn't have an asterisk attached to it.

Colin Cowherd hit all the usual talking points while spewing about the Browns' coaching search and defending the ousted Kevin Stefanski.

"Before making a risky decision, say it out loud. If it sounds smart, proceed. If it sounds insane, pause. Let's play that game with Kevin Stefanski. Hey, two-time Coach of the Year in Cleveland. Kevin Stefanski, you're fired. Does it sound like a good plan?"

What Colin Cowherd got wrong about Kevin Stefanski and the Browns

This is tired talking point No. 1. Yes, Kevin Stefanski won the Coach of the Year award in 2020 and 2023. As most NFL fans know, though, the Coach of the Year award isn't granted to the league's best coach. It is frequently bestowed upon the coach who most exceeded the team's expectations for that given season. Due to that pesky perception described above, any coach who has a winning season in Cleveland gets a "Browns bump" in COY voting.

Luminaries such as Brian Daboll (2022), Matt Nagy (2018), and Jason Garrett (2016) should have all kept their jobs in perpetuity because of the hallowed Coach of the Year award, right? Of course not. This is not to say that Kevin Stefanski is a bad coach at all. He certainly had his moments in Cleveland. However, to act as though the Browns are letting go of a young Don Shula is misguided, if not disingenuous.

"Now, if you look at recent memory, the No. 1 coaching hire in the cycle usually hits ... Stefanski, though, was probably the No. 2 coach in this cycle," Cowherd continued. "He literally interviewed for every other top available job before he could get back to his car and leave the Browns' facility."

Ah, the classic appeal to popularity fallacy. If everyone else is doing it, then it must be the right decision? Kind of like how the Browns were in a four-team race to acquire Deshaun Watson, and their prize has been an albatross contract that has crippled the team for several years — with more to come? The reality is that if Kevin Stefanski accomplished what he was paid to do, which is win football games, he'd still be the head coach, point blank.

It shouldn't (and doesn't) matter what other teams are doing. The Kevin Stefanski experiment was given a fair amount of time in Cleveland, and it didn't work out. All parties are moving on, and it's probably for the best.

As only Colin Cowherd could, though, he still had a little more salt for Browns' fans wounds.

"When teams like Cleveland perpetually lose, I not only lack sympathy, [but] I don't want to hear their fans complain about officiating or the league is rigged ... It's hard to win in this league without hitting on a sharp, young coach, and only a few went to an Ivy League school — and Cleveland had one of them ... The Browns now hire Todd Monken. Was he on any other team's list as a head coaching candidate? Maybe Todd Monken will work. Maybe he won't, but I know one thing: He must write a hell of an essay.

Zing. Cowherd continues to show his affinity for logical fallacies, first hitting us with the Uno reverse card from earlier: everyone wants Stefanski and no one wants Monken. Just last year, teams were lining up to speak to Monken for their head coaching vacancies. A down year in Baltimore (fueled by losing his franchise QB for four games and large parts of two others) led to a cooling of interest, not some magical loss of coaching acumen.

As far as the Ivy League goes — and with no disrespect to any of those educational institutions — more Ivy League grads were fired this year (two) than made the playoffs as head coaches (zero). There is simply no evidence to support a coach's alma mater having any correlation to their job performance.

We all know how Cowherd works by now. This is his persona, and it's best to take it with a grain of salt. Football is a zero-sum game. Everything comes down to what happens on the grass. If Todd Monken wins — something that Browns fans have been starved for — the narrative will begin to change.

As JuJu Smith-Schuster put it: "The Browns is the Browns" — until proven otherwise.