Brendan Gulick and Anthony Moeglin breakdown Kevin Stefanski's playcalling vs the Seahawks.
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00:00 [MUSIC]
00:07 >> Brendan Gulick and Anthony Meglin with you wrapping up our Cleveland Browns
00:11 coverage on Browns Digest after what is certainly a disappointing day here in
00:14 Seattle.
00:15 With the Seahawks prevailing with a late touchdown 24 to 20 to hand the Browns
00:19 a loss and prevent them from winning a third in a row.
00:23 Anthony, we're talking about Kevin Stefanski's play calling today and
00:27 I gotta be honest with you.
00:28 I'm a little disappointed in what I've seen, maybe I shouldn't be surprised
00:33 anyways, but I'm a little disappointed with what I've seen on social media.
00:37 For all the people that are calling for Kevin Stefanski's job,
00:39 I think it's completely ridiculous.
00:41 I thought he called a brilliant game today.
00:44 I thought the scheme was excellent.
00:45 The game plan was terrific.
00:47 Ultimately, the Browns, they didn't make enough plays and
00:50 that's a really disappointing loss, without question.
00:54 But I do not put this on Kevin Stefanski or his staff's shoulders.
00:58 I have no issue with the decision on the pass on third and
01:03 short to try to pick up a first down.
01:05 If you go back and watch the replay,
01:07 had three guys open before the ball was deflected at the line of scrimmage.
01:11 It's a bad bounce, man, things happen.
01:13 But calling for Stefanski's job after this kind of an effort,
01:16 I think he's out of bounds.
01:18 >> And people aren't gonna believe this, but
01:20 we didn't discuss what we were gonna say before this.
01:22 I totally agree with you.
01:24 Not only do I think it's out of bounds to say that this loss is on him.
01:29 I thought, just like you, he was totally in control today.
01:33 And even like obviously, no one's gonna remember the 58 minutes before
01:38 the interception off of the dude's helmet,
01:40 off of Jamal Adams' helmet who's jumping in the air.
01:43 He's seven feet in the air and it hits his head.
01:45 No one's gonna remember all the other stuff.
01:47 What they will remember is that play.
01:48 And everyone's saying run the ball, run the ball.
01:50 Sure, you can run the ball.
01:52 But guess what?
01:52 There's two minutes, the situation, there's two minutes and three seconds left.
01:56 So the clock is stopping regardless of if you run it or if you pass it.
02:00 So the best opportunity and we're throwing it to number two.
02:04 Mark Cooper's our best player on the field.
02:06 You're throwing it at number two.
02:08 And that is just as unlucky as it gets.
02:11 Take that part out of it and that it was masterful.
02:14 I thought it was, hey, we know where we are deficient and it's our quarterback and
02:18 we're gonna protect them as best we can.
02:20 Throws were easy and it got, I mean, by the time we got into the third quarter,
02:25 you could see PJ Walker becoming like NFL quarterback.
02:28 It was no longer like these one rate things.
02:31 I think about the throw to Elijah Moore up and over an outstretched arm on
02:35 a curl route on second and 20 and they moved the change.
02:38 I'm seeing these throws and it's like, okay, this guy's built up his confidence
02:42 because this play calling has been so quarterback friendly and
02:45 getting him in the right spot.
02:46 I thought Stefanski frankly was awesome.
02:48 We might catch flag for this but I thought he was fantastic today.
02:53 And the past three weeks, he's been very, very,
02:56 very good in putting this team in a position to win.
02:59 >> People give me or us all the flack that they want.
03:04 Kevin Stefanski is two and one and darn near three and O with, and
03:08 I mean this respectfully, with a practice squad quarterback against
03:13 three teams that are considered to be anywhere from good to elite.
03:17 San Francisco elite team, Colts, pretty good team.
03:21 Yeah, I know they were without their starting quarterback when the Browns
03:24 played them.
03:24 Seahawks, certainly the kind of team that is in a playoff conversation.
03:28 They're now five and two and they look like a pretty good team.
03:31 I thought the scheme on Cleveland's first touchdown, first of all,
03:35 dumping the ball on a quick screen to Kareem Hunt picking up 12 yards was great.
03:41 The next play call, a beautiful play action to then set up a screen to
03:45 the left hand side and the defense totally looking the wrong way.
03:49 Bursts a big play.
03:51 The next play call, fake a screen one way, fake a screen the other way,
03:54 find David Njoku over the middle, who does the rest himself for
03:58 18 yards for a touchdown.
03:59 That was masterful play calling.
04:02 Again, it stinks when you lose and when you feel like you were that close and
04:09 you could have, should have, would have won the game.
04:12 But this is not Kevin Stefanski's fault.
04:14 And exactly to your point, the decision to pass on third and
04:19 three was literally right before the two minute warning.
04:22 When the ball was intercepted, the clock had already jumped underneath two minutes
04:27 and would have stopped anyways.
04:29 If you had run the ball,
04:30 you were gonna take a couple seconds off the clock to the two minute warning.
04:33 It was unquestionably okay for him to decide, do I wanna run, do I wanna pass?
04:39 It didn't have to just be a let's milk the clock kind of situation.
04:43 I had no problem with it at all.
04:44 I guess you could potentially sway me a little bit
04:49 with the lack of touches for Kareem Hunt in the fourth quarter.
04:54 But I assume that Kevin Stefanski knows the personnel of his offense better than
04:58 we do.
04:59 And I didn't have an issue with who was on the field in big plays.
05:03 I thought he called a really good game.
05:05 >> And I'll tell you what, I think this is a really good conversation that you and
05:08 I can have about that specific thing.
05:10 Because I thought Kareem Hunt was awesome today.
05:13 Thought he ran hard, he gave,
05:15 like we got the same production out of Kareem Hunt we get every week.
05:19 He runs hard, he obviously cares, and he just puts his nose in there and goes.
05:23 But guess what, Jerome Ford, he wouldn't have played today if he wasn't healthy.
05:27 Okay, so he's healthy, all right, and he can do it.
05:29 He hadn't played the whole game.
05:31 That's fresh legs right there.
05:32 I mean, that's a guy who didn't take any hits all day.
05:35 And you're coming in to run in the fourth quarter, and
05:38 he's got first quarter legs, and you're like, this is perfect.
05:43 We just battered and rammed the Seattle defense with Kareem Hunt,
05:48 just running his face into people and running through guys.
05:50 To then hand it off to Jerome Ford, who runs with finesse and
05:54 finishes with power, but hasn't gotten hit all game.
05:57 I loved it, I thought it was really good, and they were getting chunk plays.
06:00 If it were me, I would have, like you said,
06:03 I don't think it was out of bounds by any means to throw it on that third down.
06:07 Yes, you could have run it, I may have actually run it, but
06:10 it was a fine decision, that play was fine, it was a fine play call.
06:13 Just didn't go there the right way.
06:15 I thought Kevin was awesome, and I thought the offense responded really well.
06:18 And you take, PJ Walker's gonna kick himself for two plays.
06:22 Not switching the protection on the strip sack, which that you have to do.
06:26 He even said he saw it, he knew it, you have to do that.
06:29 And then the interception to Njoku was frustrating.
06:34 That was one he's gonna want back, he'll lose sleep over that one.
06:37 And you take those away, Browns won by two scores.
06:40 >> Certainly disappointing, but I really thought the Browns scheme and
06:47 game plan today was plenty good enough.
06:48 75 plays to 55 plays, they dominated time of possession by more than 13 minutes.
06:56 Really good performance by Cleveland that ultimately comes up just a little bit
06:59 short, sometimes that happens.
07:01 But nothing to be embarrassed about, no lack of competitiveness,
07:06 no lack of competency, a disappointing day for sure.
07:10 But let's not put this on the shoulders of the coaching staff here,
07:13 let's be reasonable about that.
07:14 For Anthony Meglin, I'm Brendan Gulick.
07:16 All the coverage you need on today's Cleveland Browns game, and
07:19 certainly throughout the season, it's over on brownsdigest.com.
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