Though both were expected, both were necessary and deserved. Though making it to Year 5 signifies great progress, both would acknowledge the next year and a half are crucial to just about every aspect of the organization.
The Cleveland Browns will not hang a banner for achieving stability, though in the grand scheme of their 25 mostly rocky years since returning to the city in 1999, maybe they should. Still, the contract extensions finalized last week for general manager Andrew Berry and coach Kevin Stefanski should be celebrated and viewed as a real milestone.
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Browns extend coach Kevin Stefanski, GM Andrew Berry
Four years ago, it was fair to give Berry — then the youngest general manager in league history — and Stefanski a chance as the new guys brave enough to take on the Browns. It was also fair to acknowledge the bar was so low that Berry and Stefanski’s just getting along and delivering a semi-competent and competitive product would qualify as a success. It wasn’t going to be hard for Stefanski to be a lot better than predecessors Freddie Kitchens and Hue Jackson. For decades the Browns had shown just about anything was possible — and not in a good way.
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Under Berry and Stefanski, there has been progress and success. Stefanski has been named NFL Coach of the Year twice, each time coinciding with playoff seasons. Berry has mixed long-term thinking and strategy with unprecedented spending in building (and maintaining) a roster with blue-chip players at most key spots and experience at almost every position. The Berry-led front office hasn’t always picked the right players, but it’s picked — and kept — enough of the right ones to position the Browns as a team capable of winning 11 games despite starting five quarterbacks last season.
Sooner rather than later, the Browns have to win something that can hang on a banner. Berry was 2 years old the last time the Cleveland franchise won a division. With most of the best players in their upper 20s or older, there’s urgency for the team to prove it can keep up with the best in what looks to be a loaded AFC. Because of what Berry and Stefanski had done in guiding the Browns from a laughingstock to a franchise worthy of being discussed as an AFC contender, the actual extensions were considered a formality even before owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam acknowledged in March that new deals were coming.
With last week’s finalization and formal announcement of the extensions, there were two certainties: One was that Berry and Stefanski would be low-key in accepting any individual praise, as they’ve been from the start. The second was that they’d acknowledge what has to be next, which is the aforementioned banner(s) and a continued raising of the bar. The extensions mean personal security, but no real guarantees. The Browns are outspending everyone in trying to maximize what can be a championship window. A major return on multiple investments is expected.
“We’ve got work to do,” Stefanski said last week. “Nothing changes for us. We walk in this building — when you’re talking about Andrew, myself, and I think every coach, every player, you walk in here and you have a job to do, and we focus on that job.
“I think for Andrew and I, it’s a partnership where we take our jobs seriously. We really understand the jobs we have in this town. We understand our fans and what they want this team to be. So, we’re just going to focus on working every waking minute to get this thing where we want it.”
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On digital paper and when the players run out of the tunnel, Cleveland looks like a playoff team. Stefanski showed last year he can press the right buttons on Sundays and in the bigger picture with a necessary change at defensive coordinator, a late change at special teams coordinator, a series of trips designed to build team chemistry, and a series of adjustments that had the offense humming in December on its fourth quarterback of the season.
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The obvious is that the Browns trust in defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz, a football lifer who’s seen a lot in his time. The key is that Berry has continued to build toward Schwartz’s strengths and preferences, not much different from the way Stefanski has tweaked the offense to feature Amari Cooper and David Njoku after Berry’s group made big investments in the two pass catchers.
Under Berry and Stefanski, the list of things — one that includes outside perception and basic levels of unselfish functionality — that have improved is a long one. The list of things that must continue to improve for the Browns to do what they haven’t done before is long, too. Most discussions about getting there go back to one thing, and one player.
Berry and Stefanski signed off on the 2022 pursuit of quarterback Deshaun Watson because they believed Cleveland needed a significant upgrade at the game’s most important position. Watson hasn’t been that yet. Ahead of this experiment’s third season, the only thing guaranteed is the money the Browns still owe Watson. There’s no running from that, and there’s little chance they’ll get back to the playoffs without Watson playing at a high level over something near a full season. The coordinator changes, team-bonding trips and last season’s big victories have been part of the journey, but the 2023 season ended with the Browns’ getting embarrassed in Houston — followed by an immediate shift in conversation back to Watson and his rehab from shoulder surgery.
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Berry and Stefanski have helped make the Browns a real NFL franchise again without much help from Watson. They deserve the money, the security and the chance to keep pushing forward. But both know they’re going to be measured by what’s ahead, by how open this window of contention is and by how far the Browns of 2024 and 2025 go with Watson taking snaps.
For a long time, things like this week’s mandatory minicamp brought much excitement and attention because the ever-changing Browns were almost always starting anew, trying something new and trotting out unproven people in high-stress, high-level jobs. The current Browns are different, and this has been the kind of low-key offseason program Berry and Stefanski probably love.
It’s been earned, as their extensions were. By October and November, it will be time for the Browns — and Watson — to show they’ve truly become AFC contenders.
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(Photo: Nick Cammett / Getty Images)
