Stefanski, who calls the plays for the offense, will be allowed to be part of the preparation for the game, but will not be allowed to participate in any way during the game and the temporary head coach for the game will be special teams coach Mike Preifer.
The Browns will also be without offensive line coach Bill Callahan and possibly wide receivers coach Chad O'Shea, both of whom missed the win over the Steelers. O'Shea has been mentioned as possibly returning for the trip to Pittsburgh.
While Stefanski's loss is important, offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt has called plays in his coaching career previously and is more than capable of replacing Stefanski in calling plays.
The bigger loss may prove to be Joel Bitonio at left guard, where Bitonio was named to the Pro Bowl team this season.
Bitonio would have likely be replaced with rookie Nick Harris, who filled in for Wyatt Teller and Chris Hubbard at right guard earlier this season, but Harris was placed on injured reserve today eliminating him from consideration.
That leaves Michael Dunn as the most likely candidate at left guard.
Dunn has spent time on practice squads, the AAF (Birmingham), and XFL (Seattle) in his career and has been active for a few games this season, but I don't remember seeing the former Maryland Terrapin on the field.
No matter who enters the lineup,, Bitonio is going to be a very difficult player to replace, and when you consider that Dunn (or anyone else) has played left guard for a single snap (Bitonio has not missed a snap over the last four seasons) and will spend a large chunk of their game blocking Cameron Heyward, the loss of Joel Bitonio could loom larger than the loss of Kevin Stefanski when this game is over.
KhaDarel Hodge has been used as the Browns' third wideout this season with eleven catches for 180 yards, but the loss of Hodge will be felt most on special teams where he is often the first man downfield against punt returns and on kickoffs as well.
What I'm not sure about is the NFL's reasoning for allowing this game to go on as scheduled.
The league allowed both Baltimore and Tennessee to have delays earlier this season and when each team was proven to have done things wrong in their Covid-19 protections, they were punished with fines, but then allowed to delay their games.
Yet in other cases, such as the Browns WR's against the Jets and Denver's quarterbacks in a game against New Orleans, the NFL forced both teams to play.
If this is not a double standard, the league needs to do a better job in letting everyone know what a universal standard is in the current situation- because how they are handling things currently seems to be lacking consistency.
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