What modernizing Kevin Stefanski's offense looks like in 2025, and potential fits to help run it

Reaching into previous versions of success has its merit, but modernization is the answer.

(Photo - Getty)

The Browns have to fix their offense. The future of everyone involved knows it, and their actions in the last week have indicated as such. The problem has been identified and decisions have been swift. The question becomes, as Kevin Stefanski will reshape the offense yet again, is how the Browns desire to work in reverse means the future will be filled with success.

It is easy to paint the idea of reverting to more traditional conceptual framework Stefanski prefers will be a process that leads to success but we have to remember that the Browns’ offense in 2023 took a twist into uncomfortable territory and badly needed a modernization of their approach. The problem was the offense decided to cater too delicately to a failing quarterback and lost the forest through the trees.

A reversion to what Stefanski has run in the past is likely the best course here but the offense cannot be what it used to be just back in late 2022 and 2023 and think that is enough to automatically turn the tide. They need to pull that baseline into their approach but they need to add popular layers into the fold that makes these versions of wide zone offense amendable and fluid while also keeping the core identity intact.

It’s not living in two worlds, as they tried to do last year, its about maximizing every inch of the resources you have inside the current world. Make the best of the process you know can find success and build it out. When Stefanski arrived in Cleveland he was all about an offense that married the run with the pass. It kept defenses off their toes and into a neutral state of “what is coming next.”

The ability to take this identity and build an offense that uses their core principles with smart pre-snap and post-snap process will define the success of the next year. They need to update personnel as well. Plenty will need to change.

But first, we identify the changes needed and then throw some names out that have caught our eye before any interviews of external candidates are announced.

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1. Fix the under-center run game with zone baseline and gap inclusion.