Kevin Stefanski absent from list of top play callers
The absence of the Cleveland Browns coach is puzzling on PFF’s list of top play callers.
Eric Eager of Pro Football Focus ranked the top six play callers in the NFL and the list is interesting to say the least. The interesting part besides making the list six and not five is the absence of one excellent play caller in particular, Kevin Stefanski.
Other play callers snubbed from the list include Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan, and Sean Payton. McVay, Shanahan, and Payton are considered to be some of the best in the league and yet they do not appear on the list. Their absence alone should question the validity of this list, Stefanski’s absence just makes it that much worse.
Kevin Stefanski took over a situation in Cleveland that was attractive somewhat, but there were question marks on the roster. Nobody knew exactly what he was going to get out of Baker Mayfield and whether or not he could perform in the offense. Additionally, nobody was sure that certain players, such as Odell Beckham Jr., would work in this offense. There was a real chance that if the team did not perform up to expectations that a lot of roster turnover could have occurred. Stefanski was a coach who was able to overcome the obstacles that came with last season and took what was an underachieving group the previous season and transformed them into one of the better offenses in the league. One would think that the reigning NFL Coach of the Year would at least make an appearance on the list and not be completely snubbed.
Dissecting the list of people chosen over Kevin Stefanski
Matt LaFleur gets top honors and that starts off a highly questionable list. LaFleur is not bad play caller overall, but the question has to be asked how much of the success in Green Bay is due to Aaron Rodgers and not LaFleur. It’s a pretty safe bet that Rodgers is responsible for the majority of the success and a definite answer could be found out this season if an agreement cannot be made between the two parties. That would certainly give a much better answer of who the credit belongs to in Green Bay.
There are no real gripes with Brian Daboll and Andy Reid. Daboll has proven to be a quality play caller in his NFL return after an uninspiring performance earlier in the career. As far as Andy Reid is concerned, everyone is very aware of his offensive success during his time in Philadelphia in Kansas City. Their presence on the list is not an issue whatsoever.
The issues do continue though with Joe Brady, and Byron Leftwich. Unfortunately for Leftwich he suffers from the same issue that LaFleur does in Green Bay, just a bit more to the extreme though. Tampa Bay’s loaded offense with Tom Brady at the helm is not necessarily a difficult situation. While calling productive plays is still required, it’s a bit easier with an offense with that much talent. Joe Brady’s rank being this high seems a bit premature considering his one season as a NFL offensive coordinator and their offense was nothing special. Maybe in time he would belong on a list like this, but not just yet.
That brings us to Jon Gruden, this is going to take a minute. Once upon a time Gruden was one of the better offensive coaches in the league, although there were some issues that were glossed over in his coaching style. Those issues certainly surfaced in his return with the Raiders. Gruden is a coach who has a strong affinity for what he doesn’t have on his roster and grows tired of what he actually has. Gruden is a guy who is in a casino playing a slot machine who loses $20 pretty quickly and sees someone else win big on a different machine. Thinking he can duplicate that success he moves to that machine only to lose more money even though he made the change he desperately wanted to. Gruden constantly overhauls his roster and his approach to the game can be a little bit dated. The fact that this list actually includes Gruden is quite surprising.
What to make of this list that doesn’t include Kevin Stefanski?
For starters it is wrong. The fact Kevin Stefanski is notably absent is an absolute travesty. Perhaps this is just more anti-running game that seems to be prevalent in what is the remedial analytics of PFF. Then again it could just be bias that is not supposed to exist in the world of advanced statistics. The only team to appear in the Top-10 in rushing with the play callers listed is Green Bay, but their offense is more a product of Rodgers than anyone else. Las Vegas is 14th, Kansas City is 16th, Buffalo is 20th, Carolina is 21st, and Tampa Bay is 28th in rushing. For the record Cleveland is ranked third, just behind Baltimore and Tennessee, also teams without play callers appearing on this list.
The fact of the matter is that Kevin Stefanski most definitely should be on the list of top play callers in the NFL. Anyone is able to take the disjointed mess that the Browns were in 2019 and turn it into the consistent and productive offense they were in 2020 deserves a massive amount of credit. That credit should at least include being included on a list of the top six play callers in the NFL.
