Kevin Stefanski says quiet part out loud about embarrassing Browns penalties

Head coach Kevin Stefanski is loved or hated for his ability to keep his disappointment towards his playeres in house. Players love it. Fans, craving any semblance of accountability, hate it.

After a 27-14 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers officially knocked the Browns out of postseason contention and landed them at 3-10 on the season. Despite some potential for a storybook ending on this regular season led by Jameis Winston, the Browns will finally have to face the consequences of their actions and deal with a losing year.

But, their game against the Steelers was especially heinous. Plenty of avoidable mistakes were made by players throughout the game, and it seems like Stefanski was actually fed up after the Week 14 contest as the energy was at an all time low for the entire team.

Stefanski expresses his disappointment in 2 Browns players

Two key penalties will likely stick out in the minds of Browns fans from this game - German Ifedi's personal foul against the Steelers, and Kadarius Toney's unsportsmanlike conduct call after he caught a punt with the Browns still in the contest. Toney followed that up with a huge muffed punt that sealed the game for the Steelers.

Both penalties, combined with Dustin Hopkins' poor kicking performance and another turnover heavy game from Winston, sealed what feels like the worst feeling loss of the season so far for Cleveland. Stefanski obviously felt the same when telling reporters how he felt about those big penalties.

For Stefanski, these are very strong words. He's often pressed by the media after losses to put some blame on players for not performing as well as they could have, and he will often call back to football being a team sport or even asking for the blame to be placed on him as head coach.

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Not this time - Ifedi and Toney clearly messed up in Stefanski's eyes, enough to garner this sort of public comment on their penalties. Taking this quote into consideration when also seeing that Stefanski told reporters he's sticking with Hopkins as the Browns' kicker for the rest of the season despite such poor play from him tells the entire story of how much these two bothered Stefanski.

The Browns are back in the draft conversation for a top 10 pick. That's not where they expected to be when this season started considering their offseason moves and their faith, however misplaced, in Deshaun Watson's ability to finally play up to his obscene contract. But, it's where they've landed - and it's officially time to take a hard look at the draft to replace several positions on the team.

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