Surely, after the 27-20 mess of a game put forth by the Browns on Sunday against the woeful and clearly tanking Jets, someone’s gotta pay. Surely. Right?
Well, apparently, quarterback Dillon Gabriel is keeping his job. So is coach Kevin Stefnaski, even as one of his brethren–Brian Daboll of the Giants–took the fall for posting a 2-8 record that looks mighty similar to what the 2-7 Browns have done so far. If there is a price, then, perhaps the one who should most certainly pay it is the guy whose unit is most at fault for the Browns not having three wins.
That would be the special teams, which allowed two touchdowns, one on a kick return and the other on a punt return on back-to-back kicks. Because of those two scores, the mostly suffocating effort of the Browns defense went to waste.
Kevin Stefanski Won’t Make Move on Browns’ Bubba Ventrone
On Monday, wading through the muck of Week 10, Browns coach Kevin Stefanski was asked whether there is cause to have much confidence in coach Bubba Ventrone, the former Browns player who has been back with the team since 2023.
One blown coverage is tough to overcome. But two, within 36 seconds of each other? Perhaps Ventrone must pay for his sins. Then again, when it comes to the Browns, accountability is at a minimum.
Stefanski was asked about Ventrone’s job security and whether he could be fired.
“Listen, I have a ton of faith in Bubba, I have a ton of faith in our special teams,” he said. “We have to be better. That’s the case. There are ways that we can try to be better. But it’s definitely, we’ll continue to coach our guys hard, we will continue to give them the techniques to use but I trust our guys, I will trust we’ll get back to work.”
Browns Will Make Changes on Special Teams
The Browns gave up 292 yards in returns on Sunday. Stefanski won’t be making a change on Ventrone, but he did say there would be special-teams tinkering.
“Obviously, it was not good enough. We can be way, way better than that,” he said. “Some of these big ones, you’ve gotta get the guy on the ground, and limit what could be a bad return for you but get him on the ground for a gain of 20. Or whatever it is.
“Frustrating for those balls to go the other way on us. We’ll look at them and learn from them and understand how we can be better from them in a technique sense. Then we’ll look at how we can move our guys around to get guys in the right spots, like we always do.
“But yeah, tough to win a football game on the road giving up those two returns.”
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