Mid-week thoughts

 

Okay, now that training camp is over, time for new Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski to assess his team’s preparedness for the 2020 National Football League season.

 

How ready are Stefanski and his brand new coaching staff as the season opener Sunday in Baltimore creeps closer? He was asked that question recently. His answer, in a word, sanguine.

 

“I think I like where we are right now,” he said. A lot of thought and hard work resulted in the coach’s “right now.”

 

“We thought long and hard about how we were rolling out this program going all the way back to April in how we installed and how we reinstalled,” he told the Cleveland media. “I feel confident on what the coaches are able to get across to the players and I feel confident what the players were able to learn.

 

“Having said that, I understand this year and this season is unique, so we just have to be ready to put together a plan in week one that we are confident the guys can go out and execute.”

 

Unique is putting it rather mildly. It will be different in so many ways as the NFL is dead set on proving it can operate efficiently and successfully in the face of a global pandemic with 32 teams as guinea pigs.

 

Stefanski and his coaching crew have had precious little time to prepare for the 17-week marathon. About a month of training is not going to cut it, especially with the installation of new systems for both sides of the football.

 

That ordinarily takes time. But there is nothing ordinary about this season. The absence of exhibition games and minicamps will be felt in the early stages of the season, particularly on offense, where timing and precision are not just essential, it is expected.

 

Everything is brand new in Berea this season. Reminders of how awful it was last season have become seriously distant memories. And that is just the way Stefanski and General Manager Andrew Berry wanted it.

 

So how good can this offense be with less than a month of actual training and no exhibition games? Practicing against each other produces just so much progress. It’s not as though these guys can just roll in and get the job done right away.

 

To expect this team to come out of the chute and look good is foolhardy. The install and reinstall of a new offense and a new defense takes time. And that is time the coaching staff will never get back.

 

Stefanski, who becomes the franchise’s 12^th head coach (10^th full-time) since the resurrection in 1999, must know that. If he doesn’t, then shame on him for believing that’s the case.

 

One of his main goals is to get the players to believe, to be self-assured they are on the right track. But then there is the reality. And reality has been known to take big chunks out of confidence. 

 

Stefanski is on the precipice of dipping his feet into some pretty rugged waters. What is about to eventuate – honestly thinking bad thoughts about Sunday’s game – will not be his fault. At least not yet.

 

He did not bargain for the unusualness of what he undoubtedly will be up against in the next four months. When he accepted this job last January, coronavirus and pandemic were two new, strange words in our vocabularies. Who knew at the time the impact they would ultimately -- and quickly -- have?

 

Stefanski and his club will be fighting from here on out on two fronts: The 16-game schedule, and the mysterious killer that has baffled a planet. Negotiating those disparate enemies successfully will be quite a feat in and of itself.

 

Do not judge this team on how it performs in the first half of the season. Judge it on what transpires in the final eight games. That’s how long it’ll probably take for the comfort level to reach the point where positive results are attained.