Cleveland Browns New Head Coach: Kevin Stefanski

Well, the wait is over, and the Cleveland Browns have another head coach. This is the 12th head coach since 1999, but who’s counting?

Leading the team for the 2020 season, we have, former Minnesota Vikings offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski.

While there is no way to know how much Coach Stefanski’s experience in Minnesota will impact his time in Cleveland, here are Stefanski’s NFL jobs before signing on with the Browns.

• Assistant director of football operations-Minnesota Vikings (2006–2008)
• Assistant to the head coach-Minnesota Vikings (2009–2013)
• Assistant quarterbacks coach-Minnesota Vikings (2014–2015)
• Tight ends coach-Minnesota Vikings (2016)
• Running backs coach-Minnesota Vikings (2017–2018)
• Quarterbacks coach-Minnesota Vikings (2018)
• Interim offensive coordinator-Minnesota Vikings (2019)
• Offensive coordinator-Minnesota Vikings (2019)

After calming down from the Brown’s General Manager debacle, I purposefully ignored the head coach search. When asked my opinion, I had little to say. To paraphrase Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, ‘It doesn’t matter what you (or I) think!’ The fact remains, Jimmy Haslam and company chose Stefanski.

If social media is a fair gauge of public opinion, the majority of Browns fans would prefer to gargle with broken glass than have another head coach with zero experience at the helm. This lack of experience played into the downfall of most recent former head coach, Freddie Kitchens.

However, now that Stefanski is the leader for better or worse (awkward feeling that we are all marrying him) I think we should give the man a chance.

Even though he has no head coaching experience, Stefanski has a long tenure with the Minnesota Vikings organization. Most franchises do not keep staff on the payroll if they do not see their value.

I am curious to see how Coach Stefanski works as a leader. Discipline was a problem during the short tenure of Kitchens. This Browns team is not short on talent. They lack continuity; they never moved from a group of guys with talent to a talented team.

Stefanski’s hiring leaves many questions no one can answer until the 2020 season. I believe supporting the coach and his staff is the best thing to do right now.

I’m not doing a happy dance and tossing confetti. However, it is much too soon to burn Stefanski in effigy. We have a lot of time until we see what this team can be under the new regime.