CLEVELAND, Ohio – That didn’t take long.
That’s what I thought when I heard Kevin Stefanski was hired as the new coach of the Atlanta Falcons. He became the second coach hired during this period when teams are looking for head coaches.
At one point, there were nine openings. Now, there are seven.
Stefanski’s hiring happened only a few days after John Harbaugh was hired by the New York Giants.
Harbaugh spent 18 years with the Ravens, went to the playoffs 12 times and had only three losing seasons.
No one else available has anything close to his credentials.
Why did Baltimore fire him?
I wrote a column about his situation, along with Mike Tomlin stepping away from his job as coach of the Steelers. Both men were victims of what I call “The Curse of Pretty Good.”
Both coaches won a lot of games. Each won a Super Bowl. Tomlin never had a losing season in his 19 years with Pittsburgh.
But in the end, they didn’t win enough big games. Good wasn’t good enough. The fan bases in Baltimore and Pittsburgh grew weary of the frustrating early-round playoff losses in the last seven years.
The Deshaun Watson trade led to a lot of people losing their jobs with the Browns. David Petkiewicz, cleveland.com
What about Stefanski?
In Cleveland, Stefanski didn’t suffer from “The Curse of Pretty Good.” He was a two-time NFL Coach of the Year (2020 and 2023), but also had an 8-26 record in his last two seasons with the Browns.
For Stefanski, it was more like “The Curse of Deshaun Watson.”
Trading six draft picks (three first-rounders) to Houston in 2022 cut the heart out of the Browns’ drafts from 2022-24. Watson’s guaranteed $240 million contract savaged the salary cap.
Meanwhile, Watson ended up settling more civil suits with massage therapists (21) than he started games for the Browns (19) in the last three seasons.
I believe Stefanski was plagued with “Watson Exhaustion,” although the classy coach will never say that. In 2023, Stefanski won games with four different quarterbacks. The Browns finished 11-6 and made the playoffs.
That was Stefanski’s second Coach of the Year award. The Browns finished 10th in scoring, despite the changes at QB due to Watson’s injury.
Offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt, left, was one of the victims of the Deshaun Watson trade. John Kuntz, cleveland.com
The Watson Fallout
After the successful 2023 season, offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt and other members of the coaching staff on offense were fired.
Why?
Because the Browns wanted to find a way to fix Watson. They thought new offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey could change the offense to fit Watson in 2024. The Browns finished that season with a 3-14 record. Watson suffered a major Achilles injury.
It was a disaster.
Stefanski never uttered a discouraging word about the changes to his coaching staff, but it’s hard to believe he was thrilled by all the moves.
Legendary offensive line coach Bill Callahan also left after the 2023 season to join his son Brian Callahan, who was hired as head coach of the Tennessee Titans. The Browns wanted to keep Callahan, but he departed of his own accord.
Now Callahan is joining Stefanski in Atlanta. It’s very interesting. The two men had offices next to each other at the Berea training complex. Callahan was one of the first coaches hired by Stefanski when he got the Cleveland job in 2020.
In the final few months of 2025, Stefanski seemed mentally drained by his six seasons in Cleveland – especially the last few years.
Other NFL teams saw it the same way. Other than Harbaugh, he was the most sought-after available candidate. He interviewed with six different franchises. It appears most teams considering Stefanski believe he was a victim of the Watson trade.
Stefanski needed a change
I was for the Browns moving on from Stefanski, despite the fact that I believe he is a solid NFL head coach.
The Watson deal was draining for the front office and coaching staff. They kept trying to make it work, when down deep they had to have an idea that it was hopeless. That’s especially true when Watson returned in 2024 and looked lost, ranking near the bottom of every important QB rating.
An 8-26 record in the last two seasons with seven different starting QBs had to be depressing for Stefanski. He gave up play-calling in each of the last two seasons, which did nothing to help the depressing situation.
There were times when he seemed to lose his focus, such as the 2024 season when the Browns led the NFL in passes attempted with some of the worst QBs in the NFL.
Meanwhile, the Falcons fired Raheem Morris after back-to-back 8-9 seasons. Their last winning season was 2017. They have not been to the playoffs for eight years.
Atlanta has some talent. One of its quarterbacks is Kirk Cousins. He and Stefanski were together in Minnesota, where Stefanski was the offensive coordinator/QB coach. They were successful with the Vikings.
That has to be appealing to Stefanski.
The bottom line: Stefanski needs a fresh start, and Atlanta provides that.
