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Kevin Stefanski named Browns head coach

https://www.clevelandbrowns.com/news/kevin-stefanski-named-browns-head-coach


The Browns on Monday named Kevin Stefanski, the leader of one of the NFL’s most effective and balanced offenses in 2019, the team’s 18th full-time head coach.

Stefanski, 37, comes to Cleveland after his first full season as the offensive coordinator of the Minnesota Vikings, who posted a 10-6 regular season record and upset the Saints in last week’s Wild Card round before falling Saturday to the top-seeded 49ers.

"We are thrilled to welcome Kevin as the next head coach of the Cleveland Browns,” Dee and Jimmy Haslam said. “We were looking for a strong leader of this football team, a very bright coach with a high football IQ, who could establish a strong understanding of what he expected of his players, hold them accountable and confidently navigate the challenges and opportunities that present themselves throughout a season. Kevin exemplifies these qualities and more. He has a tremendous ability to relate well and communicate well with his players, has experienced many coaching facets of a team, and understands how to put them in the best position to succeed while also establishing a winning culture. Kevin, Michelle and their family will be tremendous additions to the Cleveland community and we look forward to having him lead our football team."

Stefanski, who was the seventh of eight candidates to interview for the position and the only repeat candidate from last year’s search, will be introduced in a Tuesday press conference at FirstEnergy Stadium.

“It's very exciting obviously for me and my family,” Stefanski said. “We're really looking forward to moving out here and getting situated in Cleveland and the adventure of it all. From my professional level, I just could not be more eager to get to work with this group. I think we have some really good players here. I think we have some outstanding people in this building. I know we have to add a GM and add some more pieces to this puzzle. I think the eager part for me is to get to work, buckle down and start to put together a program. Before you know it, the players are back in the building and we're going to be putting a system together offensively, defensively, etc. I think that's the fun part, when these guys get back in this building.”

Stefanski was the longest tenured coach in Minnesota, logging 14 seasons under three different head coaches with the organization. He was elevated from quarterbacks coach to offensive coordinator in Week 15 of the 2018 season and promptly guided the unit to two of its best showings of the season. In his first full season as coordinator, Stefanski led a unit that ranked eighth in the NFL in scoring offense (25.4 points per game) and sixth in rushing offense (133.3 yards per game).

In his first full year under Stefanski, veteran QB Kirk Cousins set a single-season career high for passer rating with a 107.4 mark, fourth best in the NFL in 2019. Cousins also finished with a career-low six interceptions, while adding 26 touchdowns and a 69.1 completion percentage, fourth in the NFL in 2019. He set a Viking record for completions in a season with 425 and finished with the second-most passing yards (4,298) and passer rating (107.4) in Vikings history.

With 1,135 rushing yards in 2019, RB Dalvin Cook became the eighth player in Vikings history to rush for 1,000 yards in a single season and the first since Adrian Peterson in 2015. Despite missing the final two games of the season, Cook finished fourth in the NFL with 13 rushing touchdowns and seventh in scrimmage yards with 1,654. Cook was voted a starter for the NFC in his first career Pro Bowl.

WR Stefon Diggs set a career high with 1,130 receiving yards, giving him back-to-back 1,000-receiving yard seasons for the first time in his career. Diggs finished fourth in the NFL with an average of 17.9 yards per reception in 2019.

A defensive back at Penn, Stefanski joined the Vikings in 2006 after serving as an operations intern with the Eagles. He was an assistant to head coach Brad Childress from 2006-08 before taking over as assistant quarterbacks coach, a role he’d hold for four seasons.

“When I moved out there in 2006, it was never, ‘hey, I'm going to be here for the next 14 years and then I'm going to leave to be the next head coach of the Cleveland Browns.’ That was definitely not the grand plan,” Stefanski said. “My grand plan was just to show up every day and do my job to the best of my ability. That organization holds a special place in my heart. They have great ownership. There's tremendous people throughout that building starting with the GM, head coach are just really good people. To be able to have been there and grow as a person, grow as a coach is incredible.”

Stefanski was elevated to assistant quarterbacks coach in 2009, allowing him to work alongside quarterbacks coach Kevin Rogers and veteran signal-caller Brett Favre. He maintained the position in 2010 and 2011 amid changes at head coach and quarterbacks coach. When Mike Zimmer took over as head coach in 2014, Stefanski transitioned to tight ends coach for two seasons and running backs coach for another before he was back with the quarterbacks in 2017. Despite a change at offensive coordinator from Pat Shurmur to John DeFilippo entering the 2018 season, Stefanski maintained his position before eventually taking over for DeFilippo, who was fired after the team’s Week 14 loss to the Seahawks.

Perhaps Stefanski’s best work came in 2017, when the Vikings were forced to go to their backup, Case Keenum, early in the season after starter Sam Bradford went down with an injury. Keenum, a journeyman backup who had completed 58 percent of his passes and amassed a record of 9-15 at his previous stops, went on to complete nearly 68 percent of his throws with 22 touchdowns and seven interceptions while leading the Vikings to a record of 11-3.

“I chased this thing and never knew where it was going to lead,” Stefanski said. “It led through the Vikings and spent great years there, impressionable years for me being able to coach multiple positions and work under different coordinators and different philosophies. I really feel like I grew as a coach there, and they allowed me to grow, which was outstanding. I just kind of chased this thing and here's where it landed right now. I couldn't be happier that I'm here to help this franchise.”

Assemble a good staff, garner respect and demand accountability/discipline

"I think we have some really good players here, some outstanding people in this building. I know we have to add a GM and add some more pieces to this puzzle. I think the eager part for me is to get to work, buckle down and start to put together a program" #Browns Kevin Stefanski

Good for him .... he made it to the intro press conference ...

Hoping u make it to the draft sir ....

Just glad we could land a guy everyone was 100% on board with.

the kiss of death

Or proof they're gonna finally stick to something they start. At some point you'd think they'd get tired of paying out good money to ex employees.

Need to start a poll: How many of the five years will Haslam be paying his new lackey, to not work for him?

Ivy League Freddie Kitchens 1.0

Whoopty Hell!

I’m going to wait and see how KS does before I start criticizing the hire.

I don’t like Haslam involved on the football side of things, but I also note that had we retained Gregg Williams after 2018, we might have gone to the playoffs In 2019 and we wouldn’t be talking about Kevin Stefanski right now, or the organization’s structure.

Dorsey got us some players but he blundered on the FK hire, which is how I believed things might transpire.

Yeah, that’s right. Told ya so and Whoopty hell!

j/c

Gotta love how being educated is a negative to some posters on this board.

yes - as one poster said, "intelligence is overrated".

I’m very much in the minority I realize but I think this could be a good hire. I like a lot of the X&O logic behind it, I just have no idea what kind of a leader and organizational chief he’ll be. Neither does anyone else here. That remains to be seen. I hate that he’s totally green and that there’s going to be inevitable learning curve to running a big show but I’m at least reasonably sure he’s smart and professional, which is not something I felt strongly with the last two guys. I was not at all psyched with the prospect of McDaniels, who to me looked like a Cleveland disaster waiting to happen. Not sure Stafanski will be any good in the long term but I at least understand it. The national media hate it. Just remember they LOVED the Hue hire.

Let’s hope he gets to year 3

Nobody knows how this will go until the guy gets a chance. Anything else is just speculation based on biases. I hope he does well and is here for 20+ years. We'll be better positioned to make an informed judgement a year from now. I'd prefer he stays for minimum 3-4 years just to break the damn cycle.

I'm in the "either 1yr or 10+yrs" camp. 3-4yrs means we wasted another chunk of time on a loser like Romeo or Hue. I still can't believe we gave a 1-31 coach another chance.

Welcome Kevin... good luck... hope you're here for 14+ years

The life of Mayfield...

If you are feeling underwhelmed ( like me ) or disappointed by this hire, read this post from an informed Vikings fan.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Browns/comments/eoa3es/vikings_fan_here_to_say_this/

That’s nice info from an informed MN fan. Let’s hope he’s right

At least its not McDaniels... which is a good start IMHO.

PdP was right about McDermott and Haslam ignored him. He wanted this guy. This guy supposedly blew everyone away in the interview process. I think it is quite possible they finally got it right.

You are sounding logical. You can't do that around here.

A CEO type with a highly organized approach would sure be welcome.

Well to be fair, I know a lot of dumb smart people.

There is a BIG difference between being smart and educated. Just because you can complete a degree program, doesn't mean you are smart, or have any type of COMMEN SENSE.

This doesn't pertain to KS, just in general.

Side story, I knew a kid that attended CMU (Carnegie Mellon University). When the kids tires were bald, he decided to take a miter saw and try to deepen the tread. . . .

A few days in the ICU stopping the bleeding in his leg, and its apparent, educated doesn't mean smart.

To be fair, we are the only ones who interviewed him. Blowing away Haslam in an interview isn't hard apparently.

the operative word is intelligence/intelligent.

I never mentioned educated or education as it relates to intelligence. You can be smart and not educated. You can be educated and not smart. You cannot be intelligent and not smart.

He's only a fan - but talks rationally and it's a nice enough read. I don't know who he thinks the DC is going to be - he talks about that as if he thinks an announcement has been made.

i should add that I am very happy to hear/hope that KS is not likely to call plays and is a CEO / Manager type that will hold players accountable ... that is what we need imo. Hope KS does indeed supply it.

Stefanski was hired by the Vikings in 2006 when Brad Childress was the HC. Assistant coaches rarely survive HC changes, especially assistant position coaches, yet in 2010, when Leslie Frazier was named HC of the Vikings, he retained Stefanski. Then in 2014 when Mike Zimmer took over, he not only retained Stefanski, he promoted him to TE coach in '14, RB coach in '16, QB coach in '17, and OC in '18. That kind of contradicts the image you are painting of some dumb smuck that nobody else sees any potential in. There are also rumors that had the Vikings fired Zimmer, Stefanski was going to be his successor.

And? Does that change the fact we are the only team in the NFL to interview him for a HC position?

It doesn't change the fact, but it refutes your implication.

We were also the only team to interview McDaniels.

The other two teams who were going to do so ended up filling the job before he interviewed. And one of those teams took and Asst Coach who worked under McDaniels.

That's true, but we were for two years the only team KS even had lined up. He didn't interview anywhere last year except here, and I maybe wrong about this year, but I don't think he had an interview anywhere else.

Bottom line is we really don't know everything that transpired at the interviews. We can only speculate about that and what will happen in the future with our new HC. It's hard to be optimistic based on our history but I am hoping this is finally the right move and things will change for the better. If we start to win nobody will be worrying much about who is in our FO and what our organizational structure is.

Trying to determine if a coach is a good or bad hire because no one else interviewed him seems like a fool's errand.

(The Panthers were set to interview Stefanski before they hired Rhule.)