When Todd Monken first took over as head coach of the Cleveland Browns, fans and media members quickly praised him for being a breath of fresh air with how he approached his media availability. After everyone had grown tired of former Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski’s robotic, script-like responses, there was genuine excitement that Cleveland had a direct head coach who was willing to give real answers and say what’s on his mind.
Unfortunately, it seems like that version of Monken is already fading away just one game into his tenure in Cleveland. Following the team’s embarrassing Week 1 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars, Monken had to answer questions about Deshaun Watson, and he gave a response that immediately transported fans back to a Kevin Stefanski press conference — a place no one in Cleveland wants to go.
Speaking about Watson’s performance, Monken said, “We got to play better around him, we got to call it better, and he’s got to play better.” That was Stefanski’s go-to phrase, and fans made sure to point that out, making a video of both coaches saying the same thing about the same underwhelming quarterback.
Todd Monken echoes the words of Kevin Stefanski when talking about Deshaun Watson and Browns offense
These press conferences are two years apart and by entirely different head coaches. Unfortunately for Browns fans, the more things change the more they stay the same. Cleveland is still losing games with Deshaun Watson playing bad, and the head coach is giving cliche answers.
In fairness to Monken, he hasn’t gone full Stefanski yet, because his press conferences aren’t as buttoned up. If they were, he wouldn’t have given us the moment of him essentially dismissing Browns players’ feelings just to defend his decision to start Watson. Unfortunately, both ends of the spectrum are less than ideal.
It’s only been one regular season game, though, and that could be a good thing or a bad thing. The bad part is that more games as the Browns’ coach could morph Monken into a version of Stefanski, whenever he’s in front of the camera. The possible good is that Cleveland could get things turned around on the field and Monken could be free from cliches during press conferences.
Of course, time will tell, but as things currently stand, Browns fans aren’t excited about where things are headed, because it’s backward.
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