Kevin Stefanski "It's important everyone understands that we need to improve" | Cleveland Browns

good to see everybody just finished up day two of the off-season program with the players had some really good meetings there on zoom looking forward to a couple more meetings this week with the guys and then we're in the middle of our draft process i think andrew berry and his staff have done an outstanding job to date some really good discussions uh a really collaborative group and i think the coaches have contributed to that so really pleased with where we are with some more work to do and then excited for the draft for our city i think we get to showcase our city across a a global audience so i think it'll be a great time for cleveland and with that i will take any questions thank you very much coach the first one will come from tom withers thanks rob good to have you back in the mc chair hey coach stefanski how are you sir hey just curious on your thoughts i know things haven't really changed much in terms of things being still virtual is it is it disappointing just kind of where are you at in terms of how this is beginning this year no i'm excited i think we've had a couple we started meetings yesterday really good one today looking forward to uh covering a lot of ground with you guys um so i think it's an exciting time for us as we start the offseason program and i think the guys are engaged and you know we're in phase one so it's just day two of phase one uh but i think the guys are doing a nice job in terms of your any conversations you've had with jc that you can share with us um i know there's gonna be a push for players to potentially skip even the mandatory practices coming up later in the year um what are your thoughts on that would that be problematic if if you didn't have these guys in person until you get to july i've had good discussions with jc tom uh he's very transparent i'm very transparent this program is voluntary again we're in day two of phase one it's a virtual program uh that i think the guys are doing a nice job with so we'll deal with anything else that comes down the road but yeah i think i'm just going to make sure that the communication continues uh between jc and really any of the players and myself thanks coach thanks tom nate ulrich is next hey kevin do you have any uh guys who are working out there so our building you know player health and safety is very important as you know nate to our organization so we're always ready for guys and making sure that this building is ready and i think credit to our entire staff in doing that we will have guys that are rehabbing we will have other guys coming in but that's no different than and um you know jc uh was on a nflpa conference call yesterday and uh on that call the morris smith said that you know the science uh tells the union that it would be wise not to have mandatory mini camp um do you know uh right now do the browns plan on having mandatory mini camp really nate i i know that we're in day two of the off-season program uh as as you can imagine i respect our players i respect the voluntary portion of this you also know i'm a coach and we have uh really i think outstanding coaches here that can't wait to get on the grass with with our players so we'll uh we'll figure it out as it goes but we're just gonna make sure that we're in the here and now uh as we go thank you nate we'll go to mary kay cabot uh hey coach just wondering uh you know this is a big year obviously for baker mayfield uh being in the same system so given that you are not going to be able to probably have him on the grass maybe potentially until the end of july the beginning of august if there's no mandatory mini camp how do you anticipate trying to get him to the next level uh in his development yeah mary kay all of our players are meeting with their position coaches uh this week uh really tomorrow and thursday and they're going to go over their uh player improvement plan and baker's no different than the rest of the guys they'll have a list of things that they need to work on and as coaches we're giving them the resources and the tools and the things that they need to do to improve those uh and and some are watching more tapes some are drills uh all of the really all the above i think baker as we've talked about is somebody that constantly wants to get better uh and i think alex van pelt has a really really strong plan and how we're going to attack that with baker in particular but i can also tell you i got however many 70 plus improvement plans on my desk for each player we just think it's important that everybody uh understands that that we have to improve and then it's our job to give them avenues to improve and last year he was able to before the uh before the union kind of advised against it was able to kind of get some of the guys together in austin for a sort of camp mayfield kind of a thing they told us the union did that they don't want those things happening against again this year so what's what's your sort of position on that that you know he probably or might not be able to get together with odell or austin or any of those guys yeah i think i can only focus on the voluntary off-season program that the nfl puts forth mary kay so it's hard for me to to think about anything that the guys may do outside of that that's not really my jurisdiction if you will thank you thanks mary kay scott patrick go ahead hey kevin obviously you did the whole offseason program virtually last year so what changes do you have in store for that part of it for year two yes scott we want to make sure that we're reaching our guys where they are and and we need to adapt what we're doing from a zoom standpoint so we've had many meetings on on the best way to teach and the truth is we have to teach and re-teach our systems uh right now on zoom and that's part of what we're doing so uh it's it's a challenge if you will but it's a challenge that i think everybody uh has i don't know if we're getting good at it but it's something that over the past calendar year we've definitely gotten a lot of reps on zoom so hopefully we're getting better and if you don't have any attendance or a lot of attendance for the voluntary stuff um what do you think you missed the most by not having guys out in the field and apriling me yeah i think again i'm not gonna go too far ahead i'm just gonna kind of focus on where we are right now and i think our players understand that uh based on our meetings we've had the last couple days and and the the focus is going to be on getting better but i really i don't want to get too far ahead of myself thank you scott darrell ryder you're up hey coach um one question about this off-season program um there seems to be a a larger scale more so than just a 20-21 thing here uh in play um you showed last year that it it is possible to have success with having uh the limitations that you had that were out of your control my question to you as a coach is can there be a little bit of a happy medium where players whether it's voluntary or mandated can do a little less in a team setting and more virtually uh and and still uh you know receive i guess the the same preparation i guess what i'm getting ask you know jc and the players they're looking at the data you know uh time missed injuries were down concussions were down last year so i'm just wondering from your perspective uh as a coach if maybe there's some room for some flexibility in the bigger picture of the off-season programs going forward yeah daryl i understand uh the question and and i i i saw the the press conference and and and i've heard that position i can really operate on on what the parameters of our off-season program look like currently and it's hard for me to go past that like i said before i would love to see our guys in the grass there's no coach that wouldn't love to coach their guys that's that's that's very very obvious um but i'm going to respect the process and respect the position and let those things play out and it's been a while since we talked to you uh your defense in some ways has kind of been rebuilt um you know you've got a lot of new faces brought in uh obviously john johnson uh you know troy and clowny are the big headliners just could you touch on the changes that andrew berry was able to make on that side of the ball to make you guys a better football team yeah you hit it right there daryl we're trying to make ourselves a better football team and i think andrew saw some opportunities to add players to this roster we feel like we've gotten better on the defensive side of the ball and we're creating competition we're going to have a draft and we're going to create even more competition by hopefully bringing good players so uh excited for for bringing in guys at all three levels of the defense and what that can uh mean to us moving forward thanks daryl tony grossi you're next coach skee that's tech mckinley's name for you thank you tony grossi i think it'll uh laugh huh i i answer to most things tony um i'm not to belabor this point but jc trotter's data was pretty compelling uh you guys are data driven i'm sure your analytics department has done its own study of the effects of last year do your conclusions concur with the nflpas that it was better for players and i got a follow-up but i'll wait for your answer yeah i would tell you tony player health and safety is very important to me it's very important to this organization we have a sports science group that uses all the information we can to make sure that we're having safe practices having safe workouts so obviously that's very important to me and that's something that we'll always take into account as we start to plan training camps start to plan our practices during the regular season those type of things we'll absolutely use data to our advantage and the browns have prided themselves in being outside the box at least in the last year not doing things just for the sake that they've been done this way for so long um could you ever envision embracing treaders point and endorsing it league wide as a coach hard for me to speculate tony i'll just tell you i respect uh i respect his position um but i also understand uh that there's there's rules here and i'm just gonna adhere to them as best i can thank you tony we'll go to jake trotter hey kevin um you know how would you compare uh baker's understanding of everything the offense you the skiing uh right now to uh last year at this time and then you know not only that you know your understanding of baker uh his game as well and in the upside that you guys now have together uh especially with the year under your belt and the the way that you guys uh you know really grew as the season went on last year yeah jake i hope it's significantly better i hope as he starts to listen to the installs with avp you're hearing it for the not the second time i mean he's heard these plays over and over and again and we've streamlined concepts and we've tried to adjust what we do based on his strengths our players strengths so i would hope he's much more comfortable from that perspective and that's what time allows you to do time today and do you have enough any update on just how odell is looking coming along you know when you feel like he's going to be ready to go for you guys yeah he's progressing very well he's trending in the right direction really uh you know odell and grant delpit and greedy i think they're all on track i don't know the exact uh date that that is for all those guys but really like how they're progressing you know in particular greedy uh continues to get good news and i'm just so happy for the kid um you know he just battled his butt off in the rehab room for months and and had a great attitude throughout and i just really really happy for him as he keeps getting better and better and he's he's got ways to go but but uh he's trending in the right thank you jake adida king caballa has our next question hi um this feels a little bit like a double-edged sword in the sense that you didn't get a real off-season with your players you were limited so much during the season because of covid protocol and yet you had this amazing incredible fabulous amount of success so when you look at last year what could have been better or what was missing that actually having your players present this spring do you think could make a significant difference well first thing i tell you is we lost our last game like 31 other teams or you know or at least the team's in the playoffs so we look back at last year and try and put that in perspective and we i need to understand that we have to get way better uh so as it pertains to last year and how we did last year uh it i don't think it's it's it's just apples to apples i think this is going to be a different off season we have different players we have some players in some players out so it's really uh the 2021 season is definitely going to stand on its own okay so then following with that just sort of to that point last year you did have to do an initial install with everybody and so during the season we talked a few times about a little more creativity maybe two running backs on the field at the same time and it was i mean your team had to learn how you called plays basically now you have a lot of those guys back if you are virtual can you still sort of try to be more creative or those things that only happen on a field i i think we'll deal with the parameters and whatever they are if it's virtual on the field like you mentioned uh i think it's our job to get creative offensively defensively special teams uh and it is something that that we recognize as we get going that you don't pick up where you left off we really need to focus on the work focus on reinforcing the foundation that we built last year thanks to dd fred greatham go ahead hi coach um i don't think we've talked to you since you added clowney um do you think he's versatile enough that he can play inside as well as outside and and and and can you talk about his run defense he's really played pretty well against the run in recent years yeah fred i do think he's versatile enough to play inside and outside he's shown that over the course of his career you know he's a disruptive football player in the run in the pass game he's somebody that over the uh many years and certainly last few has seen a lot of attention teams have slid to him they've put a tight end in there to chip or they're running back so we feel like he'll have opportunities here playing opposite miles that should should help him uh in the pass game but he's a disruptive player so excited to add him to the front thank you fred jeff chadell hey kevin thanks um i know of course you weren't here two years ago but in 2019 after 2018 everybody was talking about the browns we're going to be one of the best teams in the league and now we're hearing the same thing after your success last year 2019 didn't go well how do you make sure that this is not going to be a repeat of that it's something i talked to the players about jeff and and some of those aspirations that you've heard them talk about you know it's very very easy to talk about that it's very easy for me to to say that we want to do this and we're going to be this but we're going to focus on the work and that's what's that's what we did last year and i promise you that's what we'll do this year we're not going to focus on on uh anything out there that people are talking about because ultimately we're going to be about the work thank you jeff zach jackson you're up kevin i know you defer to andrew on a lot of the draft stuff but is there an example of how this year is different or i guess better because you guys have been through this a year in terms of getting everything ready so andrew's talking friday at 11 30 a.m i'm told so but uh no zach i think we didn't i was really pleased with the communication that we had even last year as we're in different states and in different locations and the communication we're able to have so we want we want that collaborative uh spirit to constantly be part of what we do and i've already seen it in our preparations to this point and it'll be important for us as we go forward and i just think that's what andrew and his staff but andrew in particular does a really nice job of listening uh to everybody gathering as much information and then ultimately he knows that he makes the decision but i do think he does a great job of procuring all of that information thank you zach dan lobby go ahead hey kevin you mentioned creating competition when you bring in draft picks but also from a coaching standpoint how does it help that when you bring these guys in you know andrew has kind of addressed a lot of the holes and filled a lot of positions so how does it help that maybe there's not the pressure on these guys to come in and have to contribute right away i think it varies dan based on the player and the position uh you know last year jed we installed him at left tackle starting right away and i know he was the 10th overall pick but it depends on the player uh and and we need to do a good job as coaches of developing these players they're they're all work in progress so from week one to week 17 or game 17 i should say uh we want those guys to get better and we need to recognize that they're going to get better through x y and z that we do with them so player development's a big part of what we do and also understanding that those players should in theory be getting better as the season thank you thanks dan nate ulrich you're up hey kevin can you explain the decision to release sheldon wilkinson last week and part two of that is i mean we see teams uh you know sometimes release a guy uh with a high number and then they you know get back to having a reunion uh is that something that is a possibility in this situation well i would tell you i think i mentioned to you the last time we spoke i wish i as a coach i want to keep everybody and there's some salary cap constraints uh that i think everybody understands and and they're hard decisions and sheldon in particular played really productive football for us and he played through injuries and he took great pride in getting to the playoffs for the first time in his career uh so he was a big part of that i hope there's a scenario nate like you mentioned um but but uh you know it's just it's those are the hard decisions that that are made um but i i really want to point out that sheldon was such a big part of what we did last year thank you nate we'll go back to tom withers we need to make this our last question for today for today thanks rob i'm getting worse on zoom as we go here kev i don't know about you um nate kind of stole my thunder there as far as sheldon's concerned what impact does his loss then have uh potentially on your draft plans um there's a lot of you know speculation about whether or not you guys will look at the defensive side like you have this whole offseason what what does his release mean then to your defensive line yeah i think for all those positions tom as you look at the draft board you you want to add good players and and i know it's easy to say that's definitely going to be here definitely going to be there i think we're looking to add good players to this roster uh i know we have multiple picks i don't know the exact number of time ahead but we've many picks that we're looking to bring in competition at all levels offense defense special teams um because i think that that's what makes you better um so every one of those decisions as a roster plays into that but i i know uh that we feel like we we can add good players to uh the roster throughout and i i would encourage you to ask andrew about that will do and if i could follow in terms of the draft will you do it the same way you did last year will you guys still be spread out or will you be able to get together to do it so we're going to be in the building here but we're going to each be in our own office so it'll be virtual in that you

Channel: Cleveland Browns

Views: 26,540

Keywords: Cleveland Browns, NFL

Id: MR89S9pJfp4

Length: 22min 15sec (1335 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 20 2021