Kevin Stefanski: Our job as Browns coaches ‘is to maximize everybody’s talents’
Cleveland Browns head coach continues to reinforce why he won the NFL’s coach of the year in his first season with the team. Stefanski keeps saying all the right things about building upon what he and his team accomplished in his rookie season and how they will improve off the successes of the 2020 campaign, which saw the Browns win a postseason game for the first time since 1994.
In an appearance last week on the ESPN morning radio program, Keyshawn J-Will and Zubin, Stefanski talked about the Browns pass-catching situation entering the 2021 offseason.
“I think you don’t want to be so dogmatic about it and say, ‘All right. We have to have this number of receivers and this number of tight ends and this running back.’ I think you go with what you have and you make sure that you’re putting yourself in position to field a competitive roster for a bunch of years moving forward.
“So, yeah, I think we’re in a good spot. The easy part to say is, ‘Hey, just give us more players. Give us three more great players on the offensive side, and give us three players on the defensive side, and we’re going to spend this amount on each guy.’ I think we have a plan. We’ll follow through with that plan.”
Stefanski noted the flexibility he has within his offense, not necessarily requiring a set number of wideouts or tight ends to make it work. He believes in his ability to tailor the offense to the talent on hand.
“But ultimately as coaches, we’ll make it work with whatever we go to,” Stefanski continued. “And I say that because sometimes you have a season, I’ve been a part of some teams in the past where you had four great receivers, so you molded your offense to that, or you had three great tight ends, and you molded your offense to that. So that’s our job as coaches to take what we have on our roster and make sure we’re maximizing everybody’s talents.”
There could be some changes. Rashard Higgins, the team’s popular No. 3 wideout, is a free agent. KhaDarel Hodge is a restricted free agent who showed enough that another team might have some interest as well. Then there’s the ongoing debate about Jarvis Landry and his expensive contract and the New York media’s obsession with getting Odell Beckham Jr. traded out of Cleveland based on their misguided perception of his feelings.
