BEREA — Coach Kevin Stefanski would not commit Sunday to making what would be a no-brainer decision for the Browns.
He will likely do it this offseason, though, and he definitely should.
Stefanski must return to what he has done best during his NFL career. He needs to restore an offense predicated on running the ball in a wide-zone blocking scheme and using heavy doses of play-action passing.
Stefanski learned the system in 2019 with the Minnesota Vikings from Gary Kubiak, who had won three Super Bowls with the Denver Broncos, two as Mike Shanahan’s offensive coordinator in the 1997 and 1998 seasons and another in the 2015 season as a head coach.
Bringing a Kubiak-inspired offense to the Browns helped Stefanski earn NFL Coach of the Year awards coming off playoff appearances in the 2020 and 2023 seasons.
But in an effort to cater to quarterback Deshaun Watson and salvage what is on track to go down as the worst trade in NFL history, the Browns exited Stefanski’s schematic wheelhouse before the 2024 season, which mercifully ended Saturday with a 35-10 loss in Baltimore.
The Browns entered the season with internal expectations to contend, yet they instead went 3-14 and fired offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey and offensive line coach Andy Dickerson on Sunday.
Two standout Browns O-linemen — left guard Joel Bitonio and right tackle Jack Conklin — publicly lobbied for sanity to prevail in 2025. Bitonio and Conklin are highly respected, drama-free players, so when they make it known they want Stefanski’s old bread-and-butter offense back in Cleveland and explain the roster is constructed for it, the Browns ought to listen.
“I think everybody learned a lesson about what this team’s built around and what we need to do moving forward,” Conklin said as players cleaned out their lockers at team headquarters.
Watson played well at times but failed to establish consistent success in 2023, his second season with the Browns after they sent six draft picks, including three in the first round, to Houston for the former three-time Pro Bowl selection who has been accused by more than two dozen women of sexual misconduct or sexual assault during his Texans tenure.
For Watson, the 2023 season also ended after a fractured glenoid and other problems in his throwing shoulder limited him to six games and led to surgery. He also appeared in just six games in 2022, when the NFL suspended him because of the aforementioned allegations.
With unmet expectations serving as the backdrop, the Browns understandably felt pressure to revamp their offense for Watson, whom they signed to a five-year, $230 million fully guaranteed contract at the time of the disastrous trade.
The problem is they went too far and lost their identity along the way.
Cleveland ousted offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt, who had worked closely with Stefanski for four seasons and assisted the Browns as they made the playoffs with quarterback Joe Flacco leading a December surge en route to an 11-6 record in 2023. The Browns also parted last offseason with running backs coach Stump Mitchell and tight ends coach T.C. McCartney. Later, legendary offensive line coach Bill Callahan left Cleveland to join his son Brian in Tennessee after he had been hired as the head coach of the Titans.
The Browns hired Dorsey to replace Van Pelt. They subscribed to a theory about a Dorsey-Watson marriage working because of their connections to the old New England Patriots system. Dorsey learned it from Brian Daboll in Buffalo, and Watson learned it from Bill O’Brien in Houston. The system leans heavily on shotgun snaps, spread concepts and run-pass option plays.
“They wanted to go all in on the RPOs and what made Deshaun most comfortable at quarterback,” Bitonio said.
The accurate statement speaks to Stefanski and Watson never being an ideal fit for each other in the first place.
Yet, the arrival of Dorsey didn’t fix anything, either. Watson struggled mightily through six games in 2024 and then suffered a season-ending ruptured Achilles tendon in the seventh. So even if Watson plays meaningful games for the Browns again, the days of bending over backward to operate an offense centered on his preferred style should be done.
When a team has an elite quarterback, structuring an offense around him is logical. Otherwise, the best approach is to support the QB with a proven foundation and then tweak the system to accommodate him rather than making wholesale changes. Unless the Browns hit the jackpot in April’s NFL draft, when they’re scheduled to pick second overall, they won’t have a transcendent QB capable of single-handedly rescuing their offense in 2025.
After Watson’s most recent significant injury, Stefanski ceded play-calling duties to Dorsey for the remainder of the season. The Browns finished 28th in yards per game (300.8) and 32nd, otherwise known as dead last, in points per game (15.2).
Now Dorsey is gone. Van Pelt and Klint Kubiak, Gary’s son, are offensive coordinators ostensibly on the open market because their teams, the Patriots and New Orleans Saints, respectively, will be hiring new head coaches this offseason.
Other assistants will undoubtedly be factors Cleveland’s OC search, but Van Pelt and Kubiak are well-versed in a set of offensive principles and philosophies the Browns would be wise to embrace again.
