The Cleveland Browns seemed to have hit a home run with the head coaching hire of Kevin Stefanski. The 2020 season was nothing but success with an 11 – 5 record, a playoff appearance and a playoff victory.
The Browns even took the Kansas City Chiefs to the brink before a helmet-to-helmet hit, that wasn’t called a penalty, and a Chad Henne scamble took the game away. (In fairness, Patrick Mahomes missing a big chunk of the game due to injury must also be mentioned.)
While expectations are through the roof for Stefanski and the Browns, it is important to note that it can be hard to replicate success in the NFL. Teams start to study tendencies, creativity wanes, loss of talented players (free agency or injury) or any other of the numerous variables that lead to NFL success could change.
On the other hand, those numerous variables could also lead to even more success for the coach and the team. While success, or failure, is rarely linear, success can grow rapidly if put in the right set of situations.
To get an idea of what could be expected from Stefanski and the Browns, we are taking a look back and rookie head coaches who had winning seasons and what happened the following year. Given the ebbs and flows of the NFL, we will just be looking back to hires starting in 2017. There are currently only seven head coaches who have been in their current position since before 2017.
(We are looking at team record because team record and coaching are forever linked despite, as noted, the vast number of variables that go into winning.)