Cleveland Browns HC Kevin Stefanski made his name with his play-calling acumen, which earned him this opportunity to begin with. As with many other former coordinators who preceded him, he hesitated to relinquish that responsibility. Finally, in the middle of the Browns’ dismal 2024 season, he relented but no longer.
Stefanski gave up play-calling duties after the Browns’ 1-6 start, and after QB Deshaun Watson tore his ACL. Then-OC Ken Dorsey took over in that department for the rest of the year, and the team subsequently fired him.
In announcing 2024 TE coach Tommy Rees as the Browns’ new offensive coordinator, Kevin Stefanski revealed he would be taking back play-calling responsibilities going forward. “I’m going to call plays, and I reserve the right to change my mind”, he told reporters, via Daniel Oyefusi of ESPN.
One might wonder about the timing of Stefanski’s decision last year. The Browns were in a tailspin, and they had just lost their quarterback. Is it possible that he didn’t want to be on the hook for blame about what he expected the offense to look like, thus avoiding the scrutiny that would come with it?
During the Browns’ lulls in Stefanski’s tenure, he has braved a number of calls for him to step down from play-calling duties. He never did before last season. Now he has made an internal promotion as a figurehead coordinator after eliminating the fall guy. At least, that is how a skeptic might interpret this sequence of events, but it matters not.
Either way, Stefanski is back in the driver’s seat, but who is his navigator? Deshaun Watson is likely to miss much of the 2025 season, and it’s fair to question if the Browns have any intention of him ever starting a game again. While they have an obligation to pay him, they don’t have to play him.
Since earning the Browns’ head coaching job in 2020, Kevin Stefanski has won the NFL Coach of the Year Award twice. When you’re as bad as the Browns are, you get a cookie for every decent season, it seems. Prior to the doomed 3-14 season of 2024, though, to be fair, he never finished worse than 7-10. He even made the playoffs twice and won a game—against the Steelers.
The Browns hold the second-overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft—will they use that to draft a quarterback? With speculation that WR Travis Hunter could be the first pick, Kevin Stefanski might have his pick of the lot. Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders and Miami (Fla.)’s Cam Ward are the consensus top prospects. One of them could be the quarterback Stefanski is calling plays for in 2025 and beyond.
