Kevin Stefanski hired as the Cleveland Browns 18th full-time head coach
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Kevin Stefanski, Minnesota Vikings offensive coordinator
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By Mary Kay Cabot, cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Paul DePodesta had to wait a year, but he got his man in Kevin Stefanski, the Vikings offensive coordinator.
The Browns on Sunday hired Stefanski, 37, as their 18th full-time head coach and their 10th in the new era. He’s the fifth one hired by the Browns since the Haslams took over in 2012.
But they’re hoping this one sticks. DePodesta, the Browns’ Chiefs Strategy Officer who ran the search this year, favored Stefanski last year, but was overruled by former GM John Dorsey, who opted for Freddie Kitchens at the last minute.
With the DePodesta driving the bus, he didn’t let Stefanski, get away this time. Even though Stefanski’s offense flopped in his head-to-head matchup with 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh, another Browns’ finalist, in the NFC Divisional Round loss on Saturday, it didn’t deter the Browns.
The Browns will also try to bring former Vice President of Player Personnel Andrew Berry back into the fold to achieve that elusive organizational alignment Jimmy Haslam is seeking.
The Browns have requested permission from the Eagles to interview Berry, their current VP of Football Operations, as Browns GM. Berry would pair well with Stefanski, whom he got to know during the Browns’ head coach search last year.
Berry and DePodesta favored Stefanski, but Dorsey opted for Kitchens, and it cost both of them their jobs after the 6-10 season. The analytics-heavy trio would give the Browns an All-Ivy lineup, with two Harvard grads in DePodesta and Berry, and a Penn alum in Stefanski.
Stefanski “blew away’’ everyone on the search committee last season and only bolstered his resume this year running the offense full-time with the help of Super Bowl winning coach Gary Kubiak, who was hired as Assistant Head Coach/Offensive Advisor to mentor Stefanski.
In his 14th season as a Vikings assistant — their longest-tenured coach — and first as their full-time offensive coordinator, Stefanski helped guide Minnesota to a 10-6 record and an upset of the Saints in the Wildcard round.
The Vikings finished 16th overall on offense this season, but sixth in rushing and eighth in points scored. Kirk Cousins finished fourth in the NFL with a 107.4 rating and fourth with a 69.1 completion percentage.
Stefanski also earned high praise from Kubiak, who could be a candidate to run the Browns’ offense if Stefanski get the job.
“Kevin’s got a brilliant future,” Kubiak told Vikings reporters in November. “The key to getting in position to [be a head coach] is calling games, calling defenses, calling offenses, making decisions, handling a meeting room of a bunch of players, being able to get the most out of not only players, but coaches as well. Kevin’s been exceptional and this is a great opportunity for him this year to do it on a full-time basis. He’s doing a great job with it.”
Stefanski, 37, is a favorite of the analytics teams in part because of he’s smart enough to handle the Browns’ increased emphasize on data-driven coaching and personnel. A graduate of Penn, where he played defensive back, Stefanski is an Ivy-Leaguer like Harvard-educated DePodesta and some of the other Browns’ decision-makers. He’s also the son of longtime NBA executive Ed Stefanski, now with the Pistons.
Having grown up in professional sports, team-building is in his DNA. He possesses a CEO mindset, and has survived many Vikings regimes and some challenging coaching staffs. As an Eagles intern while in college, Stefanski caught the attention of then Eagles QB coach Brad Childress.
“He impressed me with the way he carried himself during training camp,’’ Childress, now a senior offensive assistant for the Bears, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Sid Hartman in August. “I made that mental note that if I was to get a job, [and] he was graduating and that I would tap him to come and be my personal assistant because he was a captain at Penn.
“He’s a sharp guy, obviously. His dad and he have been involved in athletics his whole life. I thought you couldn’t find a better guy who is not going to be starry-eyed around athletes.”
Childress did just that in 2006 when he was hired as head coach of the Vikings, and by 2009, he trusted a 27-year-old Stefanski enough to promote him to assistant quarterbacks coach, where he worked with Hall of Famer Brett Favre.
“You better be sharp in that room because those guys have most of the answers all the time and when they have questions, you need to be able to have answers for them,’’ Childress said. The Vikings went 12-4 that year and lost in the NFC Championship Game to the Saints. But they ranked No. 2 with 29.4 points per game and finished No. 5 overall on offense.
Stefanski coached tight ends and running backs before moving up to quarterbacks in 2017-18, acquiring a global knowledge of the offense that’s attractive to the Browns. In 2017, the Vikings went 13-3, won the NFC North ad lost in the NFC title game to the eventual Super Bowl champion Eagles. The Vikings blocked him from going to the Giants as Pat Shurmur’s coordinator, and then he was passed over as Vikings coordinator in 2018 in favor of John DeFilippo, who was actually hired by GM Rick Spielman. But Stefanski never complained and instead coached Kirk Cousins to season-bests in completion percentage (70.1%) and passing TDs (30). He also threw his fewest INTs (10) since becoming a full-time starter in 2015.
When DeFilippo was fired with three games left in the 2018 season, Stefanski was promoted to interim OC, and then to full-time OC this year when the Browns opted for Kitchens. The fact that Stefanski, along with Kubiak and Kubiak’s son Klint, the quarterbacks coach, guided Cousins to the best season of his career this season hasn’t Stefanski’s cause.
“He’s been around sports all the time. He’s very smart. He’s an Ivy League guy, very hard worker,” Zimmer told reporters last month. “Then as his time has grown, I’ve given him different responsibilities, whether it would be the running backs or tight ends or quarterbacks, now offensive coordinator. I think he sees the game kind of how I see it. Then he’s done a nice job of mixing the calls in.”
Stefanski will be tasked with getting Baker Mayfield back on track after he tumbled to second-last in the NFL with a 78.8 rating and a 59.4 completion percentage. But he takes over an uber-talented roster featuring Odell Beckham Jr., Jarvis Landry, Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt. Defensively, he has Myles Garrett coming off suspension, Denzel Ward, Greedy Williams and other young and promising players.
https://www.cleveland.com/browns/2020/01...head-coach.html
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