CLEVELAND — Editor's note: the video in the player above is from Nov. 15, 2020.
When it comes to the impact that Kevin Stefanski has made on the Cleveland Browns this season, perhaps the most astute observation came in the days following the team's last-minute 37-35 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals on Oct. 25.
Appearing on "The Dan Le Batard Show," ESPN NFL analyst was Mina Kimes was asked about the resurgent Browns, who at that point laid claim to a 5-2 record. And her assessment had nothing to do with the team's X's and O's.
"You know what I like about the Browns this year? So like, they got their asses handed to them by Pittsburgh, right?" Kimes said. "A disaster. Horrible game. 'Baker's a fraud' in all of the establishment sports media the next day.
"And you know what I liked? It was normal in Berea. Like Baker Mayfield was normal. The press conferences were normal. Kevin Stefanski handled it. Like last season, it would have been a circus and weird anonymous quotes. And it was just like a normal football losing a game and then you rebounded with a win and Baker had his best performance of the season. That's what I like about the Browns this season: they are like a normal football team."
As Kimes alluded to, that hasn't usually been the case in Cleveland.
Since returning to the NFL in 1999, the only consistency about the Browns has been their inconsistency. Prior to hiring Stefanski and general manager Andrew Berry in January, Cleveland had hired -- and fired -- nine full-time head coaches, nine general managers and endured countless controversies -- or at least too many to fit in this story.
For at least one week, it appeared Stefanski might be doomed to suffer a similar fate.
While many Browns fans entered the 2020 season with cautious optimism, that quickly dissipated after the Baltimore Ravens beat Cleveland by a score of 38-6 in the season opener. For many, Stefanski's debut as Browns coach felt all the too familiar, with an ineffective game plan and questionable in-game decision-making playing large roles in a lopsided division loss.
Four days later, however, Stefanski's vision for Cleveland began to come into focus.
Beating the Bengals in a 35-30 shootout at FirstEnergy Stadium, Stefanski earned the first win of his head coaching career. But it was something he said after the victory that spoke to his overall approach as a head coach.
“No, it is football," Stefanski answered when asked if he ever doubted the Browns would bounce back from their Week 1 blowout loss. "These games are hard. You really have to take them as one-week seasons, like I said earlier, and pour everything you have.
"Everything I got from those guys for a week and give me everything you have for 60 minutes. We can’t look behind or look ahead. We have to focus on what we have in front of us."
Stefanski's comments might have sounded like typical "coach-speak" -- and perhaps, to a degree, it was. But it's been evident that the 38-year-old head coach has resonated with his players in a way that no other Browns head coach before him has.
“We are very much on the same page just through the meetings throughout the week and talking on the field of why we are doing certain things and why we are formatting and running certain plays," Mayfield said in October after a win over the Dallas Cowboys that advanced Cleveland's record to 3-1. "We are very much on the same page and so I think that is why we are continuing to grow and be better each week."
Eleven weeks later, the Browns' record sits at 9-3 -- the franchise's best since the 1994 season. Heading into its rematch with the Ravens on Monday Night Football, Cleveland has already clinched its first winning season since 2007 and is well-positioned to the NFL's longest active postseason drought (17 years).
As one might imagine, Stefanski is receiving no shortage of credit; at 6-1, he currently lays claim to the third-best Coach of the Year odds. But perhaps the most encouraging part about his first season as the Browns' head coach isn't the instant success -- it's that thanks to Stefanski's even-keeled demeanor, it seems sustainable.
Due to our airing of the Browns - Ravens game, tonight’s episode of The Voice will be shown overnight tonight(early Tuesday morning) from 2:05am until 4:00am. If your program guide does not reflect this change, please set your DVR to record the time period from 2:00am to 4:00am and you won’t miss a minute of The Voice.