At some point over the past two years, Cleveland Browns fans decided they were pretty much done with head coach Kevin Stefanski. Despite leading the team to a pair of rare playoff berths, which earned him NFL Coach of the Year honors, recent results left a lot to be desired.
The organization eventually came on board with the fans’ line of thinking, and it fired Stefanski as soon as the 2025 season ended. After posting just eight wins over the past 34 games, his six-year tenure had run its course.
Following a lengthy search that included young offensive wizards and one grizzled defensive veteran, the Browns hired former Baltimore Ravens offensive coordinator Todd Monken as their new head coach. As one of the oldest first-timers in history, the announcement was greeted with a great deal of warranted skepticism.
But now, after an encouraging first set of minicamps and OTAs, insider Ashley Bastock of Cleveland.com is revealing that Browns fans are viewing Monken much more optimistically.
“While Todd Monken may have started as a dark-horse coaching candidate in a lot of fans’ eyes, I had my sneaking suspicions he would grow on fans quickly, largely because of his no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is, old-school demeanor. So far, that’s been accurate. Fans seemed to especially love his longer practices, focus on accountability, and the fact that he doesn’t believe in veteran days off. Fans also like his offensive mind, coupled with what they know he achieved in Baltimore as OC over the last three years,” Bastock wrote.
For many of those fans, the way Stefanski treated rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders last year was the final straw. With Monken now giving Sanders a real chance to win the starting job in training camp, that alone may be enough to sway a lot of them.
The fact that Monken simply isn’t Stefanski may be enough to convince the rest. The 60-year-old quickly established a culture based on player accountability, something that was seen as lacking under his predecessor.
Now, that disciplined approach has to pay off in victories. It may prove difficult with as many as nine new starters on offense trying to navigate the steep learning curve posed by Monken’s successful but complicated offensive system. Plus, the most crucial decision of his entire tenure is yet to be made with the naming of a starting quarterback.
If Watson is given the job and falls on his face, as some expect him to, Monken’s honeymoon period with the fans and his time with the Browns could turn out to be very short indeed.
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