The Falcoholic
After a search that saw the Falcons interview or request interviews with close to a dozen candidates, the team has hired Kevin Stefanski, making the former Browns head man and Vikings offensive coordinator the 14th full-time head coach in franchise history.
Matt Ryan’s first and arguably most consequential hire as president of football for the Falcons sees him land on the most experienced non-Mike McCarthy candidate on the market with a strong offensive background, a bet on a coach who piloted the Browns to the playoffs in 2023 with one of the least inspiring quarterback rooms in recent memory.
Stefanski, 43, won NFL Coach of the Year twice after guiding the Browns to the playoffs in 2020 for the first time since the franchise re-joined the league in 2002 and doing it again in 2023. He followed that 2020 season up with an 8-9 season before the Browns swung the infamous trade for Deshaun Watson; Stefanski would go 7-10 in 2022 and then 11-6 in 2023 with a motley crew of quarterbacks including Watson, Joe Flacco, Dorian Thompson-Robinson, P.J. Walker, and Jeff Driscoll. After that triumph, however, the bottom fell out and the light went out of his eyes on the Browns sideline, with the team going 3-14 and 5-12 in 2024 and 2025. Stefanski was fired by Cleveland at the end of this season.
“In Kevin Stefanski, we have found a coach with the right vision, focus and demeanor to lead our team into the future. From all our research and a wonderful visit with him tonight, I believe he is the right coach to take the talent on our roster to a new level and to work with Matt, our new GM and all our football personnel to build on the strong foundation in place and take it to new heights,” Falcons owner Arthur Blank said. “He has a great plan for his staff, and he’s learned many things during his stops in Cleveland and Minnesota that have prepared him for this moment. Our objective is to win games and contend for championships every year and that is where our shared focus will remain. We are committed to putting all necessary support and resources around Coach Stefanski to achieve that success and the work has already begun.”
The team’s abject nosedive the past two seasons will give Falcons fans some pause, especially with the organization firing Stefanski and not general manager Andrew Berry, but we must remember that the Browns are also a pretty dysfunctional organization with increasingly shaky offensive talent. The fact that Stefanski was linked to almost every opening on the market means his star has not dimmed in league circles despite the crummy results in Cleveland. The coach still will have to prove he can build a sustained winner in Atlanta and that he can elevate Atlanta’s personnel; he had a top ten offense in terms of points scored just once during his time with the Browns, but that came with the team’s shaky quarterback...
