Nobody was happy about the Cleveland Browns’ preseason dud against the New England Patriots, including head coach Kevin Stefanski, who called the performance “sloppy” and cited a “lack of focus” leading to several penalties that ultimately fell short of the team's high standards and expectations.
The Browns’ coach didn’t mince words about the Browns’ performance on Friday night, and there wasn’t a single phase of his team’s operations that wasn’t targeted by some of his postgame press conference admissions.
But he didn’t just place the blame on the roster. “I missed it, man,” the Cleveland coach said. “We missed it tonight by a lot. All three phases.”
In Stefanski’s words, coaches, players, and everyone failed to reach the standard, and the biggest eye-popping data point that demonstrates that fact is the 15 penalties called against the Browns.
For the coach, it was the presnap penalties that stood out the most and caused the most frustration. “Those are lack of focus,” Stefanski says. “Those are the ones that irritate me and drive me up a wall.”
In 2024, we heard on a near-weekly basis about how the team succeeded, not just one man, unit, or even phase of the operations. This weekend was no different when it came time to accept responsibility, with Stefanski shouldering the bulk of the blame himself.
“I’m the one that has to keep the standard, and we missed it. I missed it.”
“I can live with any result when you put it all in and do it right, but when it’s sloppy and not to the standards, that burns my ass.”
Stefanski and his locker room established a clear culture in 2024, and with it, an expectation of how Cleveland football represents itself. Friday night fell short of representing much of anything other than that the team has plenty of work to do before the calendar turns to September.
Losing the game was bad enough, but the thought that the Browns might lose a bit of that sense of who they are is worse. Sunday, Stefanski and his staff get back to work with their players to not only re-establish the standard, but ensure they haven’t forgotten what made Cleveland so dangerous in the past, because it’s the same thing that will dig them out of the rut they fell into in New England.
