Kevin Stefanski, the head coach of the Cleveland Browns, is a highly regarded offensive mind in the NFL. But what is an offensive genius? Outside of comedians, it’s hard to figure out. There are tons of different criteria to judge a coach on. At the micro level, it can be based on creative play designs. Falcons’ head coach Arthur Smith gained fame with his impressive play designs. Zooming out slightly would reveal that genius revolves around personnel groupings; coaches like Ken Dorsey are highly regarded for their ability to pass the ball with an extra tight end or fullback on the field.
Continuing to zoom out to the macro scale, discussions of strategy become more important in the discussion. The best offensive coaches are masters of disguise. Kyle Shanahan demands that every run play has a play action, bootleg, and waggle variations attached to it.
The variations force defenses to second guess what they’re seeing. The split second it takes to confirm a play for a defender is long enough to exploit that same defender. Offensive geniuses are like Chess grandmasters. Every move they make sets up an even greater move down the line. Rams head coach Sean McVay is famous for remembering every play that he has called. There are a ton of criteria that can make a coach an offensive genius, and it’s usually a combination of them that certifies a genius. Maybe a genius is simply putting players in their best spot to succeed as Dolphins’ head coach Mike McDaniel believes.
This series is meant to showcase what makes coach Kevin Stefanski so special on offense. I will be spotlighting various plays during the rest of the season in an attempt to get an answer. Today’s article will be about two separate plays. One is a run play called Crunch. The other is a snag concept with a swing screen attached to it. I will refer to the play as “Super Snag.” As nomenclature varies across the league, I want to keep the vocabulary simple.
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