'You need every piece to put it together': Kevin Stefanski's staff overhaul like a puzzle

BEREA — Kevin Stefanski hasn't said, at least publicly, if he was a someone who loved to put together puzzles as a child. This offseason, though, the Browns head coach found himself dealing with the human version of a 5,000-piece one.

The Browns underwent as thorough an overhaul of their coaching staff, at least on the offensive side, as they have since Stefanski was hired in 2020. They replaced the offensive coordinator (Ken Dorsey), running backs coach (Duce Staley), tight ends coach (Tommy Rees), offensive line coach (Andy Dickerson) and, on the defensive side, defensive line coach (Jacques Cesaire).

That offensive staff overhaul came on the heels of a defensive/special teams change last offseason, when both Jim Schwartz and Bubba Ventrone were hired to be the defensive coordinator and special teams coordinator, respectively. With those changes came position-coach changes in the secondary and on the defensive line as well.

That's where the puzzle analogy comes into play. For Stefanski, while there's no picture on a box to tell him what it's supposed to look like completed, there is one in his mind when it comes to putting together a staff.

"Every piece is important in a puzzle, and some pieces are bigger than others, but you need every piece to put it together," Stefanski said at the end of minicamp. "That's kind of how I think about putting a coaching staff together. There are some big pieces that you got to get right, but all those little pieces finish the product, finish what it has to look like. So, we think long and hard about that and then fitting those things together, making sure you have people in roles where they're gonna grow and roles where they're gonna make a big difference."

Schwartz wasn't the only coach responsible for the success of the defensive scheme a year ago. However, at its base, what the Browns did on that side of the ball was what defenses coordinated by Schwartz have done for years.

Some on the Browns are calling it Ken Dorsey's offense

The offensive change this offseason has been labeled by some as taking on "Dorsey's offense." That's certainly true in terms of many aspects of the scheme, including the usage of choice routes and various pre-snap "eye candy."

However, Stefanski has said multiple times that the offensive change is collaborative. What he's tried to do is draw from the expertise of everyone in the room to create the scheme that specifically fits the Browns and their personnel the best.

What that has also done is made the coaches — the ones who are supposed to be teaching the scheme to the players — into students themselves.

"The cool thing about every day, you get to still learn from all these guys," Dickerson said. "So again, whatever the plan is, whatever the calls or the schemes that we're going to need for that week to execute, then I'm all for it. Again, this is all just, when you're in education, which we're teachers, so you're constantly learning. So that's the cool part about it. You're around all of this new information or stuff that you haven't been around for a while and you just get to continually grow and just learn and get those things down."

How Tommy Rees fits in with the Browns coaching staff

One thing that Stefanski had incorporated with this overhaul is more ideas from the college ranks. Rees comes to the Browns having been the offensive coordinator at both Notre Dame and Alabama, while another offensive assistant hire, Nick Charlton, came from Connecticut after several seasons as the head coach at Maine.

Those coaches brought a different perspective to the scheme, one that highlights ever-growing infiltration of college philosophies into NFL schemes. It's been a trend that has been roughly a decade in the making, as more and more players who comes from spread-based systems come into the league.

"I think the games have probably grown a little bit closer in terms of schematic things over the last five years maybe," Rees said. "And I think a lot of it's centered around the quarterback position and what guys are asked to do and what they feel comfortable with doing. And it's been really great to learn from the staff that we have here and work together closely with them and continue to have those really collaborative conversations as we move forward, get ready for the season."

The new coaches acknowledge that, for all their contributions, there's one person who deserves the most credit for making it all work. It's the one who's putting the puzzle all together.

"It starts with Kevin," Staley said. "Kevin got all of us involved. You know, when you look around the league over so many years, you have the coordinator, you have the head coach, and that's where it starts and stops. But Kevin is giving us all a part of that coordinator side. You know, Ken is the guy of course, Ken is running his offense, but we're all involved with the plays. We're all involved in game planning."

Chris Easterling can be reached at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com. Read more about the Browns at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/browns. Follow him on X at @ceasterlingABJ

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Kevin Stefanski puts the puzzle together with Browns coaching staff