Entering his fourth year as Browns coach, Kevin Stefanski has all the pieces in place to return to the playoffs. (TheLandOnDemand)
Kevin Stefanski won’t admit it, but deep down he knows there are no excuses now
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Editor's note: Tony Grossi is a Cleveland Browns analyst for TheLandOnDemand.com and 850 ESPN Cleveland. He has covered the Browns since 1984.
PHOENIX, AZ
No excuses.
That phrase kept crossing my mind when reporters lobbed questions at Kevin Stefanski about expectations for the Browns’ offense in 2023.
No excuses for an unproductive, below-average offense because:
* The Browns’ fourth-year coach is excited about having quarterback Deshaun Watson for a full season without any expected interruptions due to Watson’s remaining legal proceedings.
* He feels Watson will be more comfortable with his teammates and coaches in their second season together.
* He’s tailoring things specifically to benefit Watson’s unique style of quarterbacking.
* He’s happy to have added little speed receivers Elijah Moore and Marquise Goodwin.
* He’s thankful to have back starting center Ethan Pocic, keeping intact the Browns’ strongest position group in front of Watson.
* He’s determined not to reduce the impact of running back Nick Chubb on the offense despite an uptick in passing.
Add it all up. Franchise quarterback with a humungous contract. Rust-removing completed. All the necessary parts in place to support him.
So is it fair, I asked Stefanski, to say there are no excuses for the Browns not to return Watson to his glory-days, pre-scandal form with the Houston Texans?
“I don't think Deshaun or myself gets wrapped up in what people are saying on the outside,” Stefanski replied. “I think he's a self-motivated type of person, and we have a lot of those guys on our team and that's the only way I know how to go about it.”
I responded that after the aggressiveness shown by GM Andrew Berry this transaction season – his veteran moves increased to a Berry-high 10 with the signing of former Washington interior offensive lineman Wes Martin – does the coach and team feel the Super Bowl window is open as wide as it will ever be right now?
“As you can imagine, I don't really think of it that way,” Stefanski said. “I think about putting our team together and getting ready to play good football come Week 1. Expectations for our players, we always hold ourselves to a high standard. So certainly when you get back in the building and you start working towards your goals, 32 teams want to win the Super Bowl. That'll never change, but for us, we really put the focus on the work that goes into it, and a lot of that work will start in earnest on April 17th.”
No pressure? Yeah, sure
In the casual setting of a posh Arizona Biltmore conference room in the middle of March, Stefanski was unflappable as ever in not exposing any sign of pressure. The temperatures in the desert have been unseasonably cool this winter, but Stefanski doesn’t let you see him sweat even in the suffocating sun of August training camp.
He enters his fourth season with a Browns record of 27-25 counting two playoff games. The last two seasons of 8-9 and 7-10 were marked by unrest at the quarterback position and meltdowns that led to Stefanski’s first major staff firings.
Stefanski has given new coordinators Jim Schwartz (defense) and Bubba Ventrone (special teams) great latitude in serving as “head coaches” of their respective units. But everyone knows the Browns’ season will come down to Stefanski’s ability to mesh with Watson and produce an offense that, in his own estimation, has to average at least 24 points a game to keep up with Super Bowl contenders Kansas City, Buffalo and Cincinnati.
“I think our focus … is to put our players in the position to succeed,” Stefanski said. “Excited about the offseason, excited about Deshaun obviously getting some work in now with some of our guys and then he'll be back up in April to start that [offseason] program. But I think overall we're just excited about the opportunity we have.”
Watson has been holding informal workouts with regular Browns offensive holdovers recently in Houston. There will be other such workouts interspersed before and after Browns’ formal sessions once the team reconvenes on April 17, and probably a couple more before the Browns come to training camp in July.
“I would say he's going to be way more comfortable,” Stefanski said of Watson. “I think the big piece is getting comfortable with your teammates. There's no substitute for reps. There's no substitute for practice reps or game reps. So I think all those are valuable.”
Unlike a year ago, when the unprecedented Watson transaction rocked the NFL and reverberated throughout the season, the Browns and their quarterback have laid low under national radar. Nobody is touting the Browns (yet) to be playoff contenders and nobody is including Watson in the elite quarterback airspace inhabited by Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, Josh Allen, and a handful of others.
And yet, the Browns are confident that the enormous investment in Watson will pay the dividends they expect.
“I think confidence for me comes from seeing it, and I've seen him do it,” Stefanski said. “I saw him do it in those [six] games last season. I know it wasn't perfect. I certainly wasn't perfect. We weren't perfect around him and as we all know, it's not a one-man show. It's a team game and we didn't have as much team success as we would've liked late in the season there. But I've seen it from Deshaun in games, I've seen it from practice, I've seen it in his career. So that's why I'm confident.”
Last year was ‘unique’
Through 11 games with replacement starter Jacoby Brissett manning the cockpit, the Browns averaged 376.9 totals yards (fifth in the NFL) and 23.9 points (11th). In the final six games with Watson, the numbers shrunk to 298 yards and 16.3 points.
Although the Browns had high expectations for Watson’s integration in December, they now excuse the offensive shutdown to the unique circumstances of plopping in a rusty Watson with a unit that had grown accustomed to a quarterback with a different skillset.
“I mean, it was unique,” Stefanski said. “It was a challenge certainly, but no, I don't want to overstate the challenge either. Teams have quarterbacks that get injured and you send the backup in at a moment's notice. So that's just the nature of the beast when it comes to planning in the NFL.
“You know the uncertainty around it. I don't know if there was a perfect way to do it in terms of reps and those type of things. But uncertainty in the NFL and injuries and guys being unavailable, that's going to happen year in and year out. Last year, of course, as you're trying to plan with the quarterbacks, was different.”
It won’t be this year.
There are no excuses.
