The knee-jerk reaction for most Browns fans and media alike after a loss is to blame the play calling. And of course, that leads to talking about hiring a new coach.
Kevin Stefanski is no different. Add the losing to his stoic, unemotional demeanor and that he doesn’t scream on the sidelines and grab players by the facemask, and it’s easy to see why football fans in northeast Ohio haven’t embraced the Browns head coach.
Look, we aren’t saying Stefanski is the second coming of Paul Brown or Blanton Collier for that matter. Those two are #1 and #2 on the franchise’s all-time wins list for coaches. But he has won more games than Butch Davis and Romeo Crennel, both of whom have coached more games.
We wish Stefanski would change some things. We would like to see more use of David Njoku in space, and right now, he seems to have fallen in love with his new toy, that being Elijah Moore.
He has tried to make Moore an all purpose offensive threat, but in the first four games of the season, Moore has caught 17 passes for 148 yards, 8.7 per catch, and rushed 7 times for 3 yards, although he lost 20 yards on one attempt in the Baltimore game.
That has led to Donovan Peoples-Jones, who caught 61 throws for 839 yards a year ago, to be virtually ignored so far this year. He’s been targeted just 14 times, catching six passes for 75 yards.
He’s one of only three Browns to average over 10 yards per catch this year, and one of them, Kareem Hunt, has only caught two passes.
From the criticism on sports talk shows and social media, you would think the Browns were 0-4 and headed toward the first overall pick in next spring’s NFL Draft.
Instead, they are 2-2 despite losing the turnover battle in each game they’ve played this season. And as GM Andrew Berry said in his press conference last week, that’s a difficult way to win games in the NFL.
We said before the season started that despite the endless debate on the team all year in the area, the fortunes of the Cleveland Browns depended on the play of Deshaun Watson, who the organization dealt three first round draft picks and paid a king’s ransom in salary for.
If he plays well, the Browns will win and make the playoffs. If he plays like he did in the six games he appeared in last season, Cleveland will struggle, Stefanski will likely be fired and the organization will be going in a new direction.
Again.
The defense is playing at a high level. And if the offense doesn’t hand the Steelers two touchdowns in week two, Cleveland likely wins that game. And of course, last weekend they were forced to play Dorian Thompson-Robinson, a rookie fifth round draft pick, as Watson was injured.
Aaron Rodgers told Green Bay Packers fans to relax a few years ago. Browns supporters need to heed that advice. They are still 13 games left to play. If the brown and orange stop turning the ball over, they will be just fine.
Cleveland Sports Perspective 