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but he has common sense.

Warning ! Warning ! Grammar police.

Spot on!

Being intelligent, well spoken, calm and diplomatic is only half of the ingredients to become a successful leader. After nearly two seasons with KS as a HC I don’t see anything special in his coaching. Mediocre decision maker. Not analytic driven enough to change unfavorable situations to his advantage. Often slow to react when game plans changes.

30 games as a HC with the Browns should be enough to see some sort of progress in his play strategy skills and his decision making. Do you see any progress?

After nearly 50 years of following team sports I think I can spot the difference between good and exceptionally good. Maybe I’m wrong because of my limited time as a American football supporter but from my POV I can’t see the Browns becoming a top team with such a limited leader being our HC.

Anyone think stefanski may actually get the ax? I'm hoping berry tell him either give up playcalling or resign. If he chooses to leave then he wast worth keeping around anyways. If he is to arrogant to give up playcalling or refuses to trust anyone else to do it then he isnt worth keeping around.

0% chance he is fired and rightfully so.

99.9999999% chance he is calling plays next year as well.

Interesting.

What’s your take on his coaching skills and why do you think he deserves to continue with the play calling?
I can understand if he’s not getting fired but the rest you need to enlighten me.

Here's mine, and to be clear, this has nothing to do with "deserving" anything. It has much more to do with a failed season across all facets of an aligned front office and coaching staff. In other words, they all share blame and responsibility. The reaction will not be ultimatums or scapegoating.

The reaction will be getting beyond the things they couldn't control, and working hard to discover what was wrong in respect with what they could control.

Let's add up some of the former and look within the scope of the inept offense...


There was never any continuity with what we considered the "playmakers" in the offense:

*Losing Jarvis Landry, effectively after week one, derailed this offense profoundly.
*In 2021, Jarvis and OBJ combined for 13 catches and 131 yards in their limited time on the field together. Don't think anybody expected that.
*Kareem Hunt ran the ball 9 times for 25 yards after week six.
*Our weapons on offense... Landry, OBJ, Chubb and Hunt... Never shared a single play together in 2021. They were never even all suited for the same game.
*Our QB broke his wing, followed by his pride, followed by his will to trust anything he saw. It was a downward spiral that was maybe exacerbated by Stef's play-calling but both parties bear responsibility.

Add to that a team that only played well on both sides of the ball in two games all season.
Top it off with injury after injury from the starting gate and the worst covid outbreak in the NFL's two seasons.


And those are just the things we effectively couldn't control.

I can't look at all that and think "If it were just someone else calling plays...", and neither will Andrew Berry.

I agree with a lot of this.

I'll also add, that there is plenty of video evidence from all season long of plays that were called, guys were schemed open and the play was not executed.

We already have the patent on "Wait until next year"...now we can file one for "Wait until THE YEAR AFTER next year". I agree that they need to start now. Trade Baker for what you can get...save some cap $$$ for the future...and roll with whatever you can grab while grooming something...anything...for 2023.

Whoever our next head coach will be, I think we should take a strong look at Special Teams coordinators. We've tried defensive gurus (Crennel, Mangini, Pettine) and offensive guys (Chud, Shurmur, Kitchens, KS), I think a ST guys wouldn't call plays on either side of the ball and let his coordinators handle that. I liked KS last year and was excited for this year, but this year he hasn't passed the eye test, just his playcalling and discipline isn't Head Coach material

I can't understand the fans who want to throw away KS after one bad year. We will never get ahead with this type of attitude. The guy was able to take this team to a playoff win just last year. I don't think it should even be a topic of conversation between Andrew Berry and Haslam.

I will admit that from the outside some of the.calls he has made are head scratchers. His play calling leaves me baffled at times. Execution has been a problem but I think are issues go deeper. None of this can't be corrected.

There is no chance Stefanski is fired.

Pretty much my take, as well- with this additional observation: During the last half of last season, I thought the play calling was exciting, unpredictable and pretty darned effective. We had defenses back on their heels and were dictating flow. This year- total opposite- and it began when we lost several playmakers early. I have to think that circumstances dictated this about-face, because no HC goes from what we saw last year to what we saw this year by choice.

Some posters are right on schedule with the "fire someone" talk. Here's a fun fact: from 1999 to present, the average life expectancy for a Cleveland Browns FO or coaching staff- 2.5 years. Like you said, we'll never get ahead like that... and we never have. Some folks are only comfortable with what they know, and this st00pid carousel is all they've known since The Return.

I'm thinking that we'll see a return to last year's level of play with a healthy team and a full offseason. Bad years happen. This one was cursed by injury from virtually the start. Even after all the injuries and roster shifting, the team still had a shot at the playoffs in January. I'll take that over 3-13 or 4-12 any day.

Thanks for all the details in your reply and I agree and understand most of it but making good play calls doesn’t always have to include all our best play making players.

Injuries played a big part of our failed season it and the OBJ drama didn’t help but making rational and good calls from the sideline you can do regardless of who’s playing.

Just one example. Allowing a healthy QB to get sacked nine times in one game is bad play calling enough but to continue with a unfavorable match up against one of the best defensive player in the league who time after time is putting a injured player in fear and danger is inexcusable. Aaron Rodgers gave his view on this. Why single out the Browns, why Stefanski? Pat McAfee and a few other heavy weight pundits also had their suspicions about the rationality to continue with such crazy play calls so it was there for everybody including us to see and in my book that’s a sign of really poor decision making. Keeping Baker or not can never include a strategy when you’re trying to expose weaknesses on your own injured QB in order to vindicate your own decision making.

Another things that’s bother’s me is why he continues to use injured players like Myles and Baker and when things go south he then suddenly turn his back on one of them but not the other. Inconsistent and biased management is another sign of bad judgement and poor decision making.

I can go on but these two incidents alone put highlight on why I think KS so far isn’t showing signs of being a elite coach material.

My comments here are not meant to be a reflection on Stefanski, rather the NFL hiring process.

There are a lot of coaches that are great at the X's and O's and they get hired to be head coaches based on that. That skill is very important as a position coach or a coordinator. For a HC different skills are more important. It is leadership qualities and their ability to look at the game from an overview perspective. This is one reason I am not a fan of the HC calling plays. The play caller has to think ahead about what play to call while on offense, Then, when the team is on defense, he should be planning the next series, figuring out what has and has not worked and how to adjust the offense to take advantage of it. The HC should be paying attention to the defense. Looking at when to call time outs and challenge plays. I don't know how one person could do all that well at the same time.

For example, the offense passes for a 20 yard game but the receiver is ruled out of bounds in a questionable call. How do you talk to the coaches watching replays and make a determination on whether to challenge the call or not while at the same time deciding what play to run next?

The problem with the Browns is that the offense is "Stefanski's" offense. He needs to find someone who he's comfortable with. Apparently that's not AVP.

I will continue with my criticism against Stefanski and I will also include Andrew Berry in this and why I think crucial decisions was down to poor management from the coaches and the FO.

As soon as Baker was hurt the FO and the coaches should have benched him and a couple of weeks later in the season ordered a surgery.

The final decision about this stops with Stefanski and Berry. If their intentions was to properly evaluate him then I can’t see the benefits with continue playing a injured QB who on top of that is wearing a harness if they wanted more evidence about his playing ability. If the hesitation was about other things he shouldn’t play at all if he’s injured. What kind of leadership is that?

After only a few weeks his QB stats was going downhill and all the evidence pointed to that he couldn’t perform to his best ability. Why wait and jeopardize our potential future QB’s health when other key player where also injured and the chances to go far in the play off is minimal. Doesn’t make sense and a experienced and wise leader could anticipate this.

Do any of you later in the season think that this team with injuries on several key players and without a number one WR could go all the way to the SB?

So here we are. Full of question marks.

A divided relationship. No fair evaluation on Baker whatsoever. A broken team down to their knees. Supporters and media question our QB, some others question the decisions made by the FO. Shannon and Colin is having a field day on the office and Mary Key is close to a climax. (I couldn’t wrote the real word but you get it)

Stefanski and Berry will hopefully learn from the outcome of this failed season but this time they didn’t offered a sensible leadership and they didn’t made a long term wise decision.

So let me see if I have this right. The suggestion is that an NFL HC who coached his team to an 11-5 record and a playoff appearance in his rookie season as a HC, suddenly forgot how to coach during the off season. Is that about right?

That sounds no less ridiculous than those trying to say that Baker forgot how to play QB during the off season.

Try again because your take on this isn’t where the criticism lyes. Stefanski as a rookie took care of a good team and made them perform above or to their level, that’s more then enough praise for a new HC but this isn’t what we’re talking about. Move on to this season and evaluate what went wrong this time. That’s were my focus is.

If we’re trying to give every member of the organization their fair share of criticism then we also have to include coaches and the FO, not only your favorite scapegoat. Baker has been a disappointment this season but so has many others, including some of our coaches and members of the FO. If we’re willing to accept that Kevin and our GM needs a learning process to become better then we also need to do the same with players who has valid excuses playing bad. Kevin was a victim of all the injuries and so was Baker too. Both made mistakes and both needs a little bit of slack before we make too early conclusions. Do you agree on this take?

Read it again. I said both sounded silly. Not one or the other. I said one sounded no less ridiculous than the other. That's not using anyone either one as my " favorite scapegoat ". I thought that would have been obvious but not so much I guess.


I'm not sure how much you read this board. In every discussion concerning both I've said they both need to return next season. I've said it in several threads. If I felt either were totally to blame I would not say that. I want to see a healthy Baker and Stefanski working together again. I hope that clears things up for you.

It's not like AVP is an offensive genius...Geez...

My bad if I misread your posts. Anyway I’m so tired of supporters and media who criticizing Baker whenever it’s possible but totally ignore the circumstances. If he next year don’t live up to expectations then fair to let him go.

J/C,

I don't for one minute think Stefanski "forgot" the things he did last year. I do think there was a lot to head-scratch about this year that seemed different from last year. Then again, circumstances were so much different this year than last. It just felt that at times, the coaches weren't putting the team in the best position to be successful. Conversely, there were times when players where put into position to be successful and didn't execute. It was definitely too much of both.

That being said, there are coaches who do get fired after being successful - not because they forgot things, but for lack of sustained/current success. I, for one, am not ready to jettison KS after 2 seasons, especially with what he did show last season.

I'm hoping that this season proves to be one step back before taking several steps forward next year.

I didn't realize the KC game, Houston game, Pittsburgh 1 game, Cincinnati 1 game, Baltimore 1 game, were all meaningless... because in those games he had 15, 11, 16, 14, 8 carries... he had 12 in Pittsburgh 2.. the meaningless game.

We are going to extend Chubb's career by a good 3 or 4 years no matter how many games we have to lose now to do it.

The toughest decision that Berry and Stefanski can make this off-season is to do... nothing.

Berry will have to decide on Stefanski (who I would be surprised if he went anywhere).. Stefanski will have to decide on the dynamic between him and the OC and whether he relinquishes any control (which I would be surprised if he did) and Berry and Stefanski together will have to decide on Baker and the QB position....

The real question is, which will they decide is the anomaly? Was it the growth and success we had last year or the regression and struggles we had this year? Which one do they believe is the "real" trajectory of this football team?

Of course, when I say "nothing"... we will have the draft, we will have signings to figure out, who to keep, who to let walk, who to try to bring in... but the two big looming elephant in the room decisions.. Stefanski and Baker.. to stand pat and trust it will get better is the toughest decision to make for guys who want to fix problems, who want to show their fan base that they are TRYING to fix the problem. But that is what I would do... nothing.

I would chalk this year up to injuries across all levels of the team, including Baker.. to a coach who experienced a sophomore slump and the league figured out and had trouble adapting on the fly (which was made more difficult by injuries)... to a team that was never used to playing with a target on their back... to a team that hasn't figured out how to close out games when they have the chance both from the players and the coaches...

So next August, what I'm really hoping to see the field is a healthy version of this years team with some solid new additions that can help immediately.. thinking WR, OL/depth, LB, a couple others.

It's not up to Berry and Stefanski. If it were then it'd still be up to Dorsey and Greg Williams.
It's up to the Haslems.

We can agree to disagree... I think the only decision the Haslams would make is whether or not to fire Berry.

Didn't Baker say he could, and wanted to, play all along? What would the narrative have been if the coaches sat him when he was in the press saying he wanted to play?

What Baker said has nothing to do with it when someone has predetermined which direction they are going to point the finger. This entire thread is predicated on just that.

The coach could have said, "Baker Mayfield has a separated shoulder with a torn labrum and bone fracture. We admire his courage and determination to play, and he is an inspiration to everyone in that room. However, we feel that in the best interest of Baker Mayfield and the Cleveland Browns, the correct decision is to put him on IR so we can get him healthy and give us the best chance for success."

I think it goes well beyond Baker saying he could and wanted to play. That's only one of the three ingredients in the recipe.

First you certainly do have what Baker said. Secondly you have the fact that the medical staff cleared him to play. Thirdly you had, by every report, Baker looking good in practice.

I think if you look at all of the conspiracy theories floating around on this board alone about how Stefanski is trying to undermine Baker to get rid of him, it's easy to see how it would have looked if Stefanski chose to ignore all three of those factors.