The Cleveland Browns finally pulled the plug and made the unsurprising decision to fire head coach Kevin Stefanski after an up-and-down six years at the helm. Stefanski achieved incredible highs by bringing this franchise its first playoff win in decades while winning a pair of Coach of the Year awards, but after going 3-14 and 5-12 over the past couple of years, the front office decided it was time for a new voice in the locker room.
It’s never easy to move on from a coach that has been such a stabilizing force and brought your organization to new heights, especially considering that Stefanski now immediately becomes a top candidate for all the other vacancies around the league. Because of reasons like this, former team legend Joe Thomas believes firing him is still a “big risk.”
Thomas’ voice is certainly respected in Cleveland and among NFL fans in general, and he acknowledged the risk of moving on from Stefanski during a recent appearance on ESPN Cleveland. He praised Stefanski for being a good coach and questioned what the next move is now that the front office has ripped the band-aid off.
“It’s definitely a big risk. It makes me nervous because you can do a lot worse than Kevin Stefanski; he’s a good coach. Are there better coaches out there available? I don’t know. Maybe, but he was a pretty good coach. It’s definitely a big swing and a big risk to say we’re going to fire him and we don’t have exactly a guy we know we’re going to bring in day one to replace him,” Thomas said.
"It makes me nervous because you can do a lot worse than Kevin Stefanski, he's a good coach," – @joethomas73 on the Browns decision to fire Stefanski. pic.twitter.com/HIFftDGIT1
— ESPN Cleveland (@ESPNCleveland) January 7, 2026
You can’t get rid of Stefanski without a viable replacement in mind, because Thomas is absolutely right. It can get so much worse than Stefanski, as any Browns fan who watched the team for the entire decade before he showed up would know.
Cleveland cycled through many coaches prior to Stefanski, including Hue Jackson’s 1-31 run over two years. It can get so much worse, and fans are naturally going to be worried that it will get worse unless this front office nails this hiring process.
The Browns have a lot of pressure on them to bring in the right guy, and competition will be fierce on the open market since the Browns don’t have some of the things that make them an attractive destination. The Tennessee Titans and Las Vegas Raiders have young, exciting No. 1 picks at quarterback in Cam Ward and (likely) Fernando Mendoza, and are the two teams with the most cap space in the league.
Cleveland has an uncertain QB situation and has an uncertain cap situation, so it’s unreasonable to think the Browns will be first on anyone’s list this offseason. That doesn’t mean the Browns can’t find a great coach, but they do have a lot of work ahead of them to get this right.
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