It’s pretty clear in 2023 that Kevin Stefanski still doesn’t get it

Kevin Stefanski is still doing the same old thing with the Cleveland Browns.

The Cleveland Browns head coach, Kevin Stefanski, has not been perfect, or even a passible head coach over the last two seasons. He’s had two straight losing seasons, had an untold number of player discipline issues, and drama has followed this club relentlessly. Among the biggest criticism of Stefanski has been his play-calling duties and execution, his roster management, his lack of focus on the rest of the team besides the offense (and namely the quarterback), as well as his lack of transparency.

Now, you may argue that we don’t know how much time he spends with the team outside of the offense and mainly the quarterback’s position, and you’d be right. Which is where the lack of transparency comes in.

Yet, Stefanski, who may be among the first coaches fired in 2023 if he struggles out of the gate, has apparently learned nothing as a coach over the last three years. Considering his awful adjustments at half-time over the last two years, that’s not surprising.

The man can’t make the necessary changes.

Stefanski is still catering his time to the quarterback and offense as a whole. Sports Illustrated claimed that he spends a significant amount of time in the quarterback meetings, and some, myself included, are wondering if he puts as much time in with the defensive positions as he does the quarterback. He’s the head coach, not a positions coach.

But that’s not the worst part. Bad head coaches hyper-focus on the “most important” part of a team, we all know it. Yet, Stefanski also refuses to take responsibility for things, or give people clarity as to why certain decisions were made. That’s not a good thing.

Kevin Stefanski’s lack of transparency has become an issue with the Cleveland Browns faithful

In a recent scrum at the combine, Stefanski refused to give any clarity over why former special teams coach Mike Priefer, a Cleveland-native, and a close friend to Stefanski since their time in Minnesota, was fired so late into the offseason. Did Stefanski answer that question? Nope.

From the Akron Beacon Journal;

"Obviously I don’t want to get into all those type of things, but excited about Bubba. Again, a guy that I’ve known for a long time. I know what he’s done in this league as a player and as a coach.”"

Now, I’m not asking for details of the nitty gritty. Simply saying, “We think Bubba’s coaching philosophy is more in line with what we want and didn’t think he’d be available. And we weren’t about to kick out a good coach for no reason.”

Boom. We know Priefer was fired because he wasn’t delivering, Priefer knows that’s why he was fired. No one is unaware of why Priefer was fired, so why do we get the runaround? If Stefanski wanted to protect Priefer, why would you fire him? That’s far harder to deal with than a coach explaining the reason for someone’s departure.

Even Andrew Berry, though vaguely, admitted they were trying to upgrade the quarterback position from Baker Mayfield. We all knew that’s why they got Deshaun Watson, so why can’t Stefanski admit the same thing?