{"id":622376,"date":"2025-12-23T13:32:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T13:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/622376\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T13:32:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T13:32:14","slug":"the-browns-leadership-crisis-why-is-two-time-coach-of-the-year-kevin-stefanski-on-the-hot-seat-while-gm-andrew-berry-might-be-safe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/622376\/","title":{"rendered":"The Browns\u2019 leadership crisis: Why Is two-time Coach of the Year Kevin Stefanski on the hot seat while GM Andrew Berry might be safe?"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLEVELAND, Ohio \u2014 The most baffling aspect of the Cleveland Browns<\/a>‘ disastrous 2025 campaign isn\u2019t just the team\u2019s performance on the field \u2014 it\u2019s the curious organizational dynamic where GM Andrew Berry appears safe while two-time Coach of the Year Kevin Stefanski faces increasing scrutiny.<\/p>\n

This puzzling power structure was front and center in the latest Orange and Brown Talk podcast<\/a> when host Dan Labbe read a pointed question from listener Scott Mandel: \u201cI don\u2019t understand why Andrew Berry is so safe and Kevin Stefanski is in trouble. Berry gave him this horrible O-line, horrible wide receiver room and the quarterback situation. He\u2019s had one good draft. Why is Kevin Stefanski, the two-time Coach of the Year, potentially getting the shaft?\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a question that perfectly encapsulates the frustration of Browns fans witnessing a team that seems perpetually stuck in organizational dysfunction despite repeated leadership changes.<\/p>\n

While Browns beat reporter Mary Kay Cabot has reported that Berry\u2019s job appears secure thanks largely to his recent draft success, she hasn\u2019t received similar assurances about Stefanski. \u201cI haven\u2019t been able to get anybody to give me any indication about Kevin Stefanski one way or the other. But having said that, nobody is saying to me, \u2018Hey, he\u2019s safe.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The podcast conversation revealed several factors potentially working against Stefanski despite his previous coaching accolades. The most damning evidence: losing to multiple one-win teams with a top-tier defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Browns felt that they had enough talent on the roster this season to win more than three games and they lost a number of games that they should have won,\u201d Cabot explained. \u201cThey lost to two one-win teams. That can\u2019t be happening. You can\u2019t be going out there and losing to those kinds of football teams. That\u2019s just unacceptable, really, no matter what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Special teams failures have also been a persistent problem without significant intervention from Stefanski. \u201cThat was a big issue this whole entire season. They would have at least two more victories, maybe three more victories if they had better special teams,\u201d Cabot noted.<\/p>\n

Yet the podcast discussion didn\u2019t let Berry completely off the hook. Labbe pointed out several roster construction failures that directly hampered the team\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are clear areas where you can point to this and say, like Andrew and the roster, some of the roster decisions left this team short,\u201d Labbe said. \u201cAnd there are things that we\u2019re pointing to today, when we talk about Shedeur Sanders and all the factors around him, some of it\u2019s bad luck, but a lot of it is of their own making.\u201d<\/p>\n

The quarterback situation particularly stands as an indictment of the front office. When other struggling teams found veteran quarterbacks who helped them win games \u2014 Sam Darnold in Seattle, Daniel Jones in Indianapolis \u2014 the Browns cycled through Kenny Pickett and eventually landed on fifth-round rookie Shedeur Sanders.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you see Daniel Jones go to Indianapolis and have success, you see Sam Darnold playing really well all of a sudden again in Seattle,\u201d Labbe pointed out, \u201cit is frustrating to kind of see how the quarterback situation played out here and see some of these other situations where teams have found guys that were able to help them win some football games.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cabot acknowledged financial constraints played a role in the Browns\u2019 quarterback approach but questioned whether more could have been done. \u201cIf you needed to carve out $15-$20 million dollars to pay for a quarterback this year, I think you could have found a way to do that somehow, some way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The most revealing insight from the podcast might be about the alignment between coach and quarterback \u2014 a dynamic that could determine Stefanski\u2019s fate. As Cabot explained: \u201cThe head coach that coaches the Cleveland Browns in 2026 has got to have a say in the quarterback and has to have a big say in the quarterback because his name is on every win and every loss.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the Browns potentially eyeing Shedeur Sanders as their future, the question becomes whether Stefanski is the right coach to develop him \u2014 or if the organization will once again restart the cycle with new leadership tied to their quarterback of choice.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the podcast for this week:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Listen and subscribe to the Orange and Brown Talk podcast on Apple Podcasts<\/a> and Spotify<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Football Insider newsletter free trial: Take a minute and sign up for a free trial<\/a> of our Football Insider newsletter, featuring exclusive content from cleveland.com’s Browns reporters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND, Ohio \u2014 The most baffling aspect of the Cleveland Browns‘ disastrous 2025 campaign isn\u2019t just the team\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2054],"tags":[86,60955,85,54,58555,2337,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-622376","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-browns","8":"tag-browns","9":"tag-buffalo-bills-2025","10":"tag-cleveland","11":"tag-cleveland-browns","12":"tag-cleveland-browns-2025","13":"tag-clevelandbrowns","14":"tag-football","15":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115769137227783739","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}