From 2009-11, Raheem Morris lost more games than he won as Tampa Bay’s head coach. He persuaded Falcons franchise owner Arthur Blank that he’d learned to be a better coach since then. Blank fired him after two losing seasons in Atlanta.
Kevin Stefanski lost more games than he won in Cleveland. He persuaded new president of football Matt Ryan that he can help make the Falcons winners.
The Falcons announced the hiring of Stefanski late Saturday night. He lasted six years as Brown coach, which is no small feat. That’s one more year than Bill Belichick, who is always cited as the example to show that losing coaches can become winners.
The bar is much lower for Stefanski. Just getting the Falcons back to the playoffs after eight years away would be an achievement. I suspect that a certain segment of the fan base will lament that the Falcons once again gave that task to a losing coach.
Ryan surely knows that. He made his decision based on his internal evaluation of Stefanski without regard for how it would be received outside of Flowery Branch.
That’s a good sign.
Better to make an unpopular call you think is right than shy away from it because it won’t be well received. That doesn’t mean Ryan’s first big decision as an executive is the right one.
It does mean it’s a confident decision.
In a team statement, Ryan said Stefanski is a “lead-by-example leader” who will focus on building a team with strong fundamentals and toughness. Ryan said Stefanski puts a premium on a player-driven culture, “accountability for everyone” and collaboration with “every area of the football operation.”
That all sounds good. But there’s still the matter of Stefanski’s 45-56 record as Cleveland’s head coach.
The Browns finished with a losing record in four of his six seasons. His past two Browns teams lost 26 of 34 games while ranking last and next-to-last in scoring, respectively.
Stefanski still won more than any Cleveland coach since the franchise’s reboot as an expansion team. The Browns ended a 17-year playoff drought during Stefanski’s first season. He was AP coach of the year in 2020 and ’23.
Stefanski was an offensive assistant for 14 seasons with the Vikings. He called the plays in 2019, when they improved from 19th in scoring to eighth. The quarterback was Kirk Cousins, who is on his way out of Atlanta.
Stefanski’s Browns teams produced average offenses with Baker Mayfield and Jacoby Brissett. Then the Deshaun Watson situation turned the quarterback position into a mess.
Stefanski will be working with more offensive talent in Flowery Branch. His main task will be helping quarterback Michael Penix Jr. become a consistently good starter. Second on the list is repairing a rushing offense that regressed badly this season.
Stefanski was part of a Falcons candidate pool that included another losing NFL head coach (Antonio Pierce), a winning NFL head coach (Mike McDaniel) and five coordinators who’ve never been head coaches. The John Harbaugh dream ended when he was officially hired by the Giants hours before the Falcons hired Stefanski.
The Falcons own the NFC’s longest playoff drought. Only the Jets (15 years) have been losers for longer. The Falcons fired Morris and searched for a coach who could make them winners. They ended up hiring another losing coach.
It’s probably not a popular decision among their supporters. I think it’s a good sign that the Ryan made the move, anyway.
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