CLEVELAND — It's moving day, surprisingly, for three Browns assistant coaches. Offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt, running backs coach Stump Mitchell, and tight ends coach T.C. McCartney have all been relieved of their duties.
Let's start at the top with Van Pelt, the offensive coordinator by title. Remember, Kevin Stefanski calls his own plays and really was the architect of the offense, but Van Pelt's been here since Kevin got the job. He's a great guy and a quarterback in his day when he played in the NFL, and one wonders now where he will be able to go.
You look at these last four years, and I think teams that would interview him would say, "Yeah, but you didn't call plays in Cleveland." That might be a little bit of a deterring factor for him, but he did a very, very good job here, specifically working with the quarterbacks.
With Mitchell, I do know this for a fact: Those running backs love him. Nick Chubb loves Stump Mitchell, Kareem Hunt really had a great relationship with him, and the young running backs always just lived on what he said. He's been with the team since 2019, when Freddie Kitchens was still the head coach.
McCartney has also been here for Stefanski's entire tenure. His position group, if you only look at David Njoku, had an amazing year. I mean, we've been waiting for David Njoku to have the kind of year that he had this season. You would have to think that McCartney was part of the reason for that.
However, Jordan Akins was also a bit of a disappointment coming over from Houston (that was a Deshaun Watson signing). And of course, Harrison Bryant continues to be the No. 2 tight end here, but tallied just 81 receiving yards this season.
Now, what is going on here? Let's read under the covers, OK?
Usually when a team does this — and because there are so many openings out there and going to be new head coaches named around the NFL and then then their staffs will have to be filled — I feel that the Browns might have their eye on specific people that they want to be able to go and get right away.
If you back to last year, right away Joe Woods was released as the defensive coordinator. The Browns had their eye, of course, on Jim Schwartz, and they went right out and got him before anybody else to claim him.
Conversely, if you remember, the Browns had their eye on Bubba Ventrone to be their special teams coordinator, but he was interviewing still in Indianapolis to be the head coach with the Colts. As soon as he didn't get that job, then the Browns went right out after him, got him the next day, and then Mike Priefer became the casualty there as he was released as the special teams coordinator.
The interesting part will be, "Who will come here and take the offensive coordinator title position if you're not going to have play-calling responsibilities?" Now, is there a chance the next OC could take over play-calling from Kevin Stefanski? I think it definitely would be out on the table.
Of course, it was a very hot topic last year. A lot of people thought at the end of last year coming into this season that Kevin should've given up the play-calling responsibilities and just been kind of a CEO head coach. He didn't want to do that, and I don't think he still wants to do that.
I think he likes calling plays. He likes working with his staff, but this is his offense, and he really feels he's got the finger on that play call sheet and that he likes dialing up his own plays and kind of making his own fate.
There are three different ways this could go:
- If you notice that the next offensive coordinator has Stefanski ties, then he won out and got the guy that he wanted to come in here.
- If they have Deshaun Watson ties, then you can say, "Alright, well, that's another situation where Watson wants to even be more comfortable with his own guy in there."
- Or, if the hire has Andrew Berry ties, then obviously the general manager of the team would be calling the shots.
Watch how that plays out.