CLEVELAND — There was a moment early in the broadcast of the Cleveland Browns' Week 4 matchup against the Dallas Cowboys in which FOX analyst Daryl Johnston referred to Cleveland head coach Kevin Stefanski as "Kevin Stefanek."
Suffice to say, by the end of the game, the former Cowboys fullback knew the Browns head coach's actual name.
In what was ultimately a 49-38 Cleveland victory -- the Browns' third in as many games -- Stefanski put on a play-calling clinic, establishing his team's run-first identity and catching Dallas off guard with timely gadget plays. Despite star running back Nick Chubb exiting the game in the second quarter with an MCL injury, Cleveland rushed for 307 yards, while the Browns opened the game with a Jarvis Landry touchdown pass to Odell Beckham Jr. and closed it with a 50-yard Beckham rushing score on a reverse.
"The risk and thinking about the result of these plays is really I just try to think about the process of what got us there," Stefanski said of Beckham's big run, which initially appeared as though it could end with a loss of yardage. "If he gets tackled, it's a dumb call -- 'what am I thinking?' At the end of the day, I trust our guys, I trust the players and that's really where my focus goes."
Nevertheless, what marked just his fourth game as a head coach doubled as a coming-out party of sorts for Stefanski, who became the first Browns head coach to start a season 3-1 since Butch Davis did so in 2001. Stefanski's big day didn't go unnoticed either, as Cleveland's 38-year-old head coach has earned plenty of praise in the aftermath of Sunday's game.