Jimmy Haslam started the "process" for finding a replacement for Freddie Kitchens as the coach of the Cleveland Browns with words that valued experience as a head coach as a leader etc.
You had the feeling that as the Browns sifted through candidates with their search committee that was comprised of Jimmy Haslam, he of the Pilot/Flying J scandal, his wife Dee who thought the current Browns uniforms were an upgrade over their classic predecessors, the Haslams son-in-law J.W. Johnson, who has little recommend himself other than he married Jimmy and Dee's daughter. Chris Collins, who runs the Browns salary cap, and finally Mr. Paul DePodesta, he who lives in San Diego for a team located in Cleveland and while DePodesta is best known for his role in the book "Moneyball" with the Oakland Athletics, he's also the man that on the one occasion that he had total power, managed to run the cash-flush Los Angeles Dodgers into last place and low-balled a 25-year-old homegrown player named Adrian Beltre and allowed him to leave via free agency, only to see Beltre play 14 more seasons, finish with over 3,000 hits and hit 477 homers.
Not a football person in the bunch and while you could say that the John Dorsey-led football men had blown their chance, it would have been a nice idea to have at least one traditional football man asking questions in the room.
Clearly, this was a "qualified" committee to decide who would be yet another head coach for the Cleveland Browns and only was missing a manager from a Pilot/Flying J to truly be complete.
And since these are the Cleveland Browns, they hired a first-time head coach with a year and a half working as an offensive coordinator with the selection of Minnesota Vikings assistant Kevin Stefanski.
Stefanski was widely considered as the runner-up to Freddie Kitchens for the job last season and was the choice of Paul DePodesta, who pushed heavily for him only to lose out to Kitchens, who was the preferred coach of John Dorsey.
Stefanski was the offensive coordinator for Minnesota for a portion of the 2018 season and all of this season for the Vikings, who finished the season rated eighth in scoring offense and were noted for a strong ground game with Dalvin Cook and Alexander Mattison as the workhorses (especially Cook) and using Kirk Cousins play-action often.
It does appear for a team that possesses elite-level runners in Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt and with a quarterback that has similar traits as Kirk Cousins in Baker Mayfield that Stefanski could be a good fit with the offensive personnel in place.
The Vikings offense improved in 2019 from the previous season, but my question is this- how much of that was Stefanski and how much could be credited to "Advisor" Gary Kubiak?
After all, Kubiak is noted as a quarterback guru and has won a Super Bowl as a head coach in Denver before health issues forced him to leave coaching for a term, so you should consider the possibility that the addition of Kubiak should have accounted for at least a portion of the improvement of the Minnesota offense.
Still, Stefanski was involved and deserves a chunk of the credit for the improvement as well, no matter how you wish to slice those kudos up.
Reportedly, in the interview of New England's Josh McDaniels, McDaniels recommended "sweeping organizational change", while such a change would have been a good idea, what do you think the chances of Paul DePodesta selecting the coach and plan that would include DePodesta as part of the organizational cleaning?
Would you recommend picking someone at your company to be hired that would evict you if they were hired? I doubt it, so McDaniels was likely out of the running as soon as he uttered those words.
Honesty might be a virtue, but in this case, it wasn't going to be rewarded.
AND that includes the stipulation that the owners stay out of football matters with said owners sitting right there.
Considering that option and the preferred candidate of Paul DePodesta being involved as the other option, it was easy to see who was going to win the position.
I know this may read like a snarky column on Stefanski and it's not centered on him as much as it is the process that ended with Stefanski sitting in the final chair when the music shut off.
I really liked a candidate or two (Josh McDaniels and Greg Roman), disliked another (Brian Daboll), and the remaining candidates (Stefanski, Robert Saleh, Jim Schwartz, Eric Bieniemy, and Mike McCarthy, who was hired by Dallas before the conclusion of the process) were coaches that weren't going to excite me or send me screaming into the night if they were hired.
For me personally, this seems like yet another unexciting Browns hire that saw plenty of Jimmy Haslam wind blowing about what they were looking for and settling for another C-lister that no one else was interviewing (Stefanski was scheduled to interview with Carolina, but the Panthers hired Matt Ruhle before that interview took place), no different than Rob Chudzinski, Mike Pettine or Freddie Kitchens before Stefanski.
That is why I started this post as I did- another untested candidate that few (if any) were interested in as their head coach that seems to have the job because of a shared educational background with Paul DePodesta.
The Browns have this need to be the smartest person in the room, a need to make sure that everyone else knows this, and to travel a different path from others despite a lack of success from that path.
I'm not against numbers evaluations- numbers are a large part of what makes sports fun.
Comparing one player's statistics against another, what is the likelihood of this or that taking place considering the history- that is some of the attraction of following sports.
However, there can be too much analysis and importance placed on those numbers and not enough of on the scouting aspect and there lies my concern.
The Browns are rumored to be connected to former Sashi Brown/Paul DePodesta assistant Andrew Berry as the new general manager.
If this proves to be true, that means that two-thirds of the people that brought you these two drafts in 2016 and 2017 are back and running the show in Cleveland.
The 2016 draft, which featured the trading down and avoiding DeShaun Watson, taking Corey Coleman instead of Michael Thomas with the traded down pick, and has only two remaining players on the 2019 team (4th rounder Joe Schobert and 5th rounder Rashard Higgins) is beyond awful and the 2017 version is better with first overall pick Myles Garrett and 3rd round starter Larry Ogunjobi, the only other remaining player is disappointing first-rounder David Njoku and the Browns traded up for him and chose Jabrill Peppers in the first round to boot!
In all honesty, I'm far more concerned about the re-emergence of DePodesta and Berry running personnel than I am about Kevin Stefanski.
Every first-time head coach is a risk.
Every one.
No one is a sure thing and more fail than succeed, so while Kevin Stefanski would not have been my selection, I cannot say that I am certain that he will be the next head coaching failure in Cleveland.
What I can say is look at the statistics (ironic, huh?) of the two teams and drafts that DePodesta/Berry (and Sashi Brown) were involved with.
1-31, three starters out of two drafts.
I realize crummy coaching from Hue Jackson comes into play a few times and I also realize that there is an argument from some that John Dorsey's draft pick bounty was because of the moves by the same front office clique.
However, what about the draft and personnel decisions from their time would make you feel remotely comfortable with allowing them to make those transactions again?
DePodesta is one of the people that didn't think Carson Wentz was a top 20 quarterback, didn't attempt to trade up for Patrick Mahomes and literally traded out of position rather than select DeShaun Watson.
Imagine this scenario even if you don't imagine any other hypotheticals- IF the Browns do everything under that regime exactly the same other than not trading down and simply take DeShaun Watson, look at the ripple effect that would have.
Yes, the Browns would not have Denzel Ward, which would be a loss, but not an insurmountable one, but having Watson would mean that that they wouldn't have had to draft a quarterback in 2018, which means no Baker Mayfield and therefore no doubts about the position entering 2020.
Without needing a quarterback, it could have been the Browns adding picks in the 2018 draft through teams that wanted to trade up (the Jets and Bills traded up in that draft into the top seven to pick quarterbacks) and it's possible, the Browns may have still been able to take Denzel Ward, the one lost player through not making that trade, anyway.
Those are my concerns.
The seemingly "fixed" process of Kevin Stefanski being the choice all along, despite words that promised an open search for an established winner, from a committee that seems to have a lack of knowledge about football beyond the numbers and a decidedly biased process along with a track record of evaluating personnel by the people in charge makes me very concerned about that portion of the organization.
I'm not mad. I'm not glad.
I'm just meh with a side helping of worry.
Back later with the other big news of the weekend as the Devils fired their general manager Ray Shero.
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