Kevin Stefanski will be the first coach to have a second interview for the Atlanta Falcons’ head coaching job on Saturday night, according to a league source by The Athletic’s Dianna Russini.
The 43-year-old former Cleveland Browns head coach is the front-runner for now in a process that began with the firing of Raheem Morris on Jan. 4.
Matt Ryan, Atlanta’s all-time leading passer, was hired on Jan. 10 as the team’s new president of football and has led all of the interviews for the head coaching position.
In his introductory news conference, Ryan said he was looking for a head coach with “emotional stability.”
“It’s a really difficult job to do, and there’s lots of highs and lows, and some of the best guys that I was around in those positions were very stable emotionally,” Ryan said.
Stefanski, who, like Ryan, is a Pennsylvania native, was 45-56 in six seasons with the Browns. He was named NFL Coach of the Year twice (2020 and 2023) and led Cleveland to two playoff appearances, though his team finished in the top half of the AFC North only twice while battling Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.
Stefanski, an All-Ivy League defensive back at Penn, got the Browns job on the strength of his work as the Minnesota Vikings’ offensive coordinator in 2019, when Kirk Cousins led Minnesota to the playoffs with an offense that was eighth in the league in scoring (25.4 ppg.) and fifth in expected points added (62.06).
In Cleveland, he had a rotating cast of quarterbacks that included Baker Mayfield, Deshaun Watson, Jacoby Brissett, Joe Flacco, Jameis Winston, Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders. In his six seasons, the Browns were 29th in the league in scoring (20.31 ppg.), 24th in point differential (minus-296) and 31st in offensive expected points added (minus-563.37).
Before joining Cleveland, Stefanski spent 14 seasons in Minnesota, where he started as an assistant to head coach Brad Childress and worked his way up the offensive coaching staff to the coordinator position. He was the assistant quarterbacks coach in Minnesota under then-offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave, who was Ryan’s quarterbacks coach in Atlanta from 2006 to 2010. He also worked under offensive coordinators Norv Turner and Pat Shurmur.
Seattle offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, who also interviewed for Atlanta’s opening, worked as Stefanski’s quarterbacks coach in Minnesota in 2019. The Falcons also interviewed former Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh, former Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel, Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley, Los Angeles Chargers defensive coordinators Jesse Minter, Dolphins defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver and Seahawks defensive coordinator Aden Durde for the head coaching position.
“There’s gotta be a level of presence that you have to have as a coach and the ability to command the respect of your players,” Ryan said. “It doesn’t mean you’ve gotta be the most vocal or the best interview or the best in a press conference. It just means you’ve got to be able to connect with the players that you have.”
