CLEVELAND, Ohio — There’s probably a chicken or egg argument to be had here. Are the Browns going to the playoffs because of all of Kevin Stefanski’s team-building efforts — The Greenbrier, joint practices in Philadelphia, a week in Los Angeles — or do we view those things more favorably because the Browns made it back to the playoffs?
History is written by the victors, so with the benefit of hindsight it’s hard to argue the results of Stefanski’s master culture-building plan.
“I love the mountains. You’ve got to keep in mind, I’m only an hour and a half away from there,” right guard Wyatt Teller said after Thursday night’s playoff-clinching win over the Jets.
“The Greenbrier was really cool,” Teller continued. “It was really nice being with all the guys. You can go to your room and just isolate yourself, but for the most part you’re hanging out with the guys. You’re going to go get a meal and I really think that brought us together.”
Veteran defensive lineman Shelby Harris joined the team after their trip to West Virginia, just before their trip to Philadelphia. Getting dropped into a defensive line room from the outside offers a unique perspective to the closeness of the group.
“It’s crazy. Right away,” Harris said when asked if he noticed right away how close everyone was. “It just kind of felt natural. We all just kind of vibed right away and that’s why I was like, ‘Yeah, we got something special.’”
Harris is in his ninth season. He’s played in Oakland, Denver and Seattle and knows what a good defensive line looks like. He called this group the best defensive line group in his career, there are no bad apples, everyone gets along, everyone wants to hang out. The evidence is right there after every game when the defensive line group is usually the loudest and last to leave the locker room.
“I’ve been around some good D-lines where we all liked each other and stuff,” Harris said, “but to have this amount of talent and also this amount of camaraderie in one room’s unheard of.”
It’s not just the defensive line. It’s across the locker room.
“We have a good group of guys that are committed to the goal,” left guard Joel Bitonio said.
Harris is in his ninth season. He’s played in Oakland, Denver and Seattle and knows what a good defensive line looks like. He called this group the best defensive line group in his career, there are no bad apples, everyone gets along, everyone wants to hang out. The evidence is right there after every game when the defensive line group is usually the loudest and last to leave the locker room.
“I’ve been around some good D-lines where we all liked each other and stuff,” Harris said, “but to have this amount of talent and also this amount of camaraderie in one room’s unheard of.”
It’s not just the defensive line. It’s across the locker room.
“We have a good group of guys that are committed to the goal,” left guard Joel Bitonio said.
Kevin Stefanski has been here for four years now. He’s been on the sideline for 65 regular season games — he missed one with COVID-19 — and you can tell, in everything he’s doing, this is his team.
There were questions about Stefanski coming into this year, some fair and some not, but he’s put them to rest with the job he’s done. Maybe there was a now-or-never motivation behind the extreme measures he’s taken to get this group here, but he’s managed to drag this team through what has felt like — and what will likely be — the longest season in Browns history.
They opened training camp on July 22, played four preseason games and this is their first weekend off in almost three months. They have at least two more weeks left in this season but it would be shocking if it didn’t go on longer than that.
“Job’s not done,” Harris said. “It is cool (to clinch the playoffs). I didn’t come here for that. Didn’t come here just for the playoffs, you know what I mean? That was expected and so now this is when the real job starts and we have to really go out there and put it together on all three phases.”
Stefanski’s greatest accomplishment this season has nothing to do with a playcall or a fourth down decision. It has been making this team his own and establishing his culture. It’s making sure things are being done his way, equipping his assistants to do their jobs and holding them to a standard that allows players like undrafted safeties Ronnie Hickman and D’Anthony Bell to step in and perform.
Stability has allowed GM Andrew Berry to draft and build a roster that fits Stefanski’s vision as well as that of new defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz. It hasn’t been perfect but it never is in the NFL. When there’s stability and real culture, you don’t spend your time trying to find someone to blame for mistakes, you fix them.
Everyone is pulling in the same direction right now. Everyone is focused on one goal. This team feels as close as any Browns team in recent years.
Maybe it’s judging the result instead of the process, but it’s hard to argue with Stefanski’s methods right now. And guys just keep bringing up those nine days in the mountains of West Virginia.
“Man, just this culture we’ve been building back since Greenbrier,” Denzel Ward said at the end of an answer on Thursday night when he was asked how this team has managed to stay the course.
It’s easy to talk about great culture when you’re winning, but it’s also easy to see how winning can be the direct result of strong culture, the kind of culture it takes real time to build.
What this team has accomplished so far this season hasn’t happened by accident.
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