Mid-week thoughts

Kevin Stefanski sure takes losing hard. Seemingly too hard. But that's not bad.

"We achieved a lot . . . but . . . we came up short," he said in his postmortem to the Browns' highly successful 2020 season, "and there's a very real sense of disappointment among our players and coaches."

Actually, there's nothing wrong with that approach. Swallowing a loss is harder the more successful you are and the 12-6 record the Browns rang up was bound to generate more disappointment than usual with the season-ending finale in Kansas City a few days ago.

That heart-breaking loss to the Chiefs in the division semifinal should nag at Stefanski and everyone else in the organization throughout the offseason. It should not be forgotten. So close and yet so far against the defending Super Bowl champions should incentivize until the next training camp.

This team, mainly through the coaching of Stefanski and his staff, maintained a resolve that enabled them to battle through rough periods along the way and reach the playoffs for the first time since 2002 with a rookie head coach.

Stefanski probably won't ever forget the final eight minutes of the Chiefs game -- when the Browns had a great chance to take the lead late --  and sort of beat himself up for the way he handled it. "I didn't put guys in a position to succeed," he said. "That is where I'm going to work hard to make sure the next time we are in that situation, I do."

He might also want to think about utilizing the NFL's best running backs at the same time rather than one at a time. By now, he should know that with Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt in a game, that puts more pressure on the opposition because both are playmakers and can explode at any time.

Chubb should run the football at least 20 times a game. Only once in 14 games this season did he carry more than 20 times. In fact, he averaged only 15.8 carries a game. He should average much more. Less than 16 is way too few for one of the NFL's most dangerous runners.

And there is no excuse to keep Hunt chained to the bench as Stefanski did in the first half of the KC loss. He was strictly a spectator as the Cleveland offense huffed and puffed futilely through the first 30 minutes. That's not thinking clearly.

As the playcaller, it is Stefanski's job to utilize all his weapons. Perhaps to a certain extent that's what he meant when he said he was not putting guys in a position to succeed. It's difficult to succeed if a playmaker, in this case Hunt, who later scored a touchdown when called on in the second half, is tethered to the bench.

He pronounced himself "excited" about Chubb and Hunt. "I'm excited about them moving forward," he said. "It is our job to grow in this offense and find more things they can do." It took him an entire season to find this out?

The limelight this offseason, Stefanski said, will be on improvement. "We will have to spend a lot of time . . . finding ways to make sure we are getting better," he said. "We have to get better as a football team. I have to get better as coach. That will be our focus."

He might think about getting better as a playcaller, too. Toward the end of the season, he tilted a higher percentage of plays toward the passing game, apparently forgetting how much the ground game early in the season helped establish one of the league's best and most effective offenses.

Final grade for Stefanski: B+. While he did a terrific job, I can't yet give him any kind of A because there is still plenty of room for improvement. Qualifying for the playoffs is the easy part. Getting back to them next year won't be as easy.