Kevin Stefanski's mistakes cost the Browns a trip to the AFC Championship, but he'll learn

Kevin Stefanski’s first season as Browns head coach will obviously be viewed as a massive success. His first postseason game as head coach — he missed the Wild Card game after testing positive for COVID — could have been an even bigger one, but the rookie coach just couldn’t get out of his own way at times.

Stefanski’s clock management in the fourth quarter was rightfully criticized. There was no sense of urgency. Timeouts weren’t valued. It was as if the Browns thought there’d be a fifth quarter. There wasn’t, of course. There wasn’t even another drive. Cleveland’s defense, which was provided no margin for error on that last drive, couldn’t stop *checks notes* Chad Henne and that was that. The Browns’ magical season was over. The Chiefs were headed back to the AFC title game for a third consecutive season.

Maybe one last defensive stop would not have been necessary had Stefanski not been too conservative on the previous drive. Cleveland got the ball with eight minutes left on the clock. That’s plenty of time, but when you’re trailing late, you have to extend the game as long as possible. The Browns took their time. Seven plays, which gained only 12 yards, took nearly four minutes off the clock. At that point, there was only 4:19 left on the clock. Cleveland had one timeout left.

Making matters worse, instead of keeping his offense on the field, Stefanski decided to punt it away. Had the Browns been down six points, that decision may have made sense. If Cleveland fails, the Chiefs are already in field goal range and those three points makes it a two-possession game. But the Browns trailed by five, so even if Kansas City did get those three points, it would have remained a one-possession game.

Stefanski’s opposite, Andy Reid, did not hesitate when it was his chance to take a risk on fourth down. Not only did he keep his offense on the field, but he put Chad Freaking Henne in the gun and asked him to throw it.

There was one subtle mistake that didn’t get a lot of attention, but Stefanski may have gotten the Chiefs off the field if he had challenged the spot on Damien Williams’ third-down conversion on the first series of downs on that final drive.

I don’t know if the spot would have been overturned, but Stefanski used a timeout to stop the clock anyway. Why not throw the challenge flag and get a two-for there?

Even bigger than those managerial mistakes may have been Stefanski’s decision to get away from the run early on. It’s easy to fall into that trap with Mahomes on the other sideline marching down the field seemingly at will. But Cleveland was always going to have to run the ball to make this a game. Nick Chubb eventually got going in the second half, but ended the game with only 13 attempts.

Now, the analytics nerds will tell you that a run-pass ratio tilted more toward the latter is the way to go, but the run game has been the engine of this offense all season and Kansas City’s defense is so much better against the pass than it is the run. And, oh yeah, the running game was working while the passing game was inconsistent.

This is by no means an indictment of Stefanski’s ability as a coach. Just an area where he could probably use some improvement, as is the case with just about every young head coach. Even if Stefanski never becomes a master tactician on game days, he’ll still be an asset just based on everything he’s done for that offense and Baker Mayfield, especially.

Just look at the coach on the other sideline. It wasn’t too long ago that Reid was seen as an awful decision-maker who could never win a big game. Reid still has his mental lapses but you rarely hear the criticism anymore.

Winning tends to erase those labels, and Stefanski looks like a coach with a lot of wins in his future.