Kevin Stefanski has a growing list of personnel failures that may doom his career

Kevin Stefanski will not hold anyone accountable it seems, even when Jadeveon Clowney refuses to play in most of the game.

It’s hard to wake up today and not feel some sort of way about Kevin Stefanski and his time with the Cleveland Browns. On one hand, he can take an offense and essentially squeeze water from a stone, and that’s quite remarkable. On the other hand, since his arrival, he has failed to handle any sort of complicated interpersonal situation, and that is quite damnable.

As an X’s and O’s type of guy, I think he’s earned himself another year. I think he’s a talented offensive mind, who overthinks and overplays his hand far too often. He’s got the know-how to win, he just has to stop making the same mistakes. That’s teachable. That’s coachable. That’s possible.

On the flip side, Stefanski has proven he’s far more willing to turn a blind eye to growing issues in the locker room, and apparently can’t or won’t hold people accountable privately, or publicly. That is starting to become an issue, especially lately.

When Jadeveon Clowney refused to go into a game in Week 7 against the Ravens, apparently Stefanski didn’t see it as a big deal and even told reporters this week (via ESPN) he won’t go into specifics about a player refusing to play, saying;

"I’m not going to get into my discussions with any of our players throughout the course of the season. We’re all human. We all have things that come up throughout the season that we talk about, but I’m not going to get into the specifics on this one."

It’s one thing to cover for a player going through a rough personal time, and that’s understandable. But now Stefanski has gotten to a point where he won’t even publically address the issues that are going on in public.

That’s not being a “player’s coach”, that’s being a bad leader.

Players are not entitled to every moment being private, and the fact that Stefanski feels that should in fact be the case has allowed player after player to disrespect him and the team publically.  He may be a good coach, but he’s a bad leader.

The Cleveland Browns have been pure chaos under Kevin Stefanski

We could go into details about any number of guys. Whether it’s the selfish nature of Jarvis Landry and Odell Beckham when they didn’t get the ball enough, Baker Mayfield’s situation with the team, Garrett just going off and making silly and deadly mistakes, the Deshaun Waston of it all, Clowney throwing players and people under the bus, allowing a guy like Malik McDowell to make the team. I mean, dang, Stefanski has so many issues with character on this team and he’s done not a thing about it.

The Browns locker room is chaos incarnate, and that’s on leadership. Why shouldn’t it be, though? With so much constant turmoil going on, and so little accountability, of course, this is going to happen.

I don’t think Stefanski should be fired for his abilities as a coach, I believe him to be very knowledgeable as a football coach. Yet, as a leader of men? I think there you have a very real reason to fire Stefanski.

Just with Clowney alone, if he would have told any other successful and talented coach that he wasn’t going to be playing any more than just third downs, he would’ve been suspended or cut the next day.

Yet, Stefanski not only didn’t cut him, or suspend him, but he didn’t do anything to Clowney. How can you retain the respect of the locker room if you’re not punishing players who are actively hurting your ability to win games?

I truly don’t understand how anyone in that locker room can view Stefanski as a person with authority after finding out he let Clowney call the shots. Sure, he was suspended one series to start the next game, but that’s like finding out your kid took a cookie from the cookie jar, so you send him to the corner, but let him keep the cookie.

How is that going to teach him a lesson?

Now, where does that leave the team? Stefasnkis’ job is hanging on by a thread, the team finally punished Clowney by sending him home, meaning he’s out for the season finale and now we’re going into the 2023 offseason with another typical Browns calamity to clean up after.