During this series Jack Duffin will be going position by position looking at everything contracts and roster construction to look at how Andrew Berry has built the team and what the future of the Cleveland Browns holds.
Looking at every contract the Cleveland Browns currently have as well as when extension might be due for particular players.
QB – RB – WR – TE – T – G – C – ED – DT – LB – CB – S
2024 Roster Prediction
Giving you an idea of who the most likely players are to make the team in 2024 and then discussing the runners and riders for the practice squad as well.
QB – RB – WR – TE – T – G – C – ED – DT – LB – CB – S
2025 & 2026 Roster Prediction (OBR VIP)
Why stop at just looking at 2024, what does the future of the position room look like over the next two years. Who could be departing and which position rooms are they most likely to change.
QB – RB – WR – TE – T – G – C – ED – DT – LB – CB – S
Andrew Berry Roster Building Strategy & Philosophy (OBR VIP)
We now have a significant sample when it comes to Andrew Berry and building the roster, looking at how he has operated over the years from the team before he took over to where it is now.
QB – RB – WR – TE – T – G – C – ED – DT – LB – CB
Contract Article (OBR VIP)
A lot of these articles will be looking at what someone’s future extension could look like if the Cleveland Browns decide to extend them.
Watson – Chubb – Cooper – Njoku – Wills – Teller – Garrett – Owusu-Koramoah – Emerson
Positional Spending Under Andrew Berry (OBR VIP)
Going back over each season to see how much Andrew Berry has spent on the position and then using my cash formula to project what it could look like moving forward if Jimmy Haslam keeps investing in the team.
QB – RB – WR – TE – T – G/C – ED – DT – LB – CB
Bonus Articles
Some articles just don’t fit in any of the above categories so I will link them here.
Move On From Watson – DePodesta’s Guardrails – Positional Spending Vs NFL – Which Positions Markets Have Stagnated – Proven Performance Escalator – Berry’s Low Free Agency Spending – 2023/2024 Offensive Snap Counts – 2023/2024 Defensive Snap Counts – Restructuring Watson: Help Or Hinder Cap Flexibility – 2023/2024 Game Day Actives – Creating More Salary Cap Rollover – Newsome Fifth Year Option Impact
To read this full article and more, subscribe now —
SALE: 60% off first year
Get access to this article and all of the in-depth coverage from the 247Sports Network with this special offer.
Join at 60% off Annual
Already a subscriber? Login
7PM: A Special OBR Weekly
Join the OBR OGs, Barry McBride, Fred Greetham, and a special guest tonight at 7PM to talk Cleveland Browns. Fred is fresh off the fields from Greenbrier – your eyes and ears on all the action. Join in and talk with the guys live tonight!
Fred Greetham has spent the last week in Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, watching the Browns in action, and tonight he will join us LIVE on YouTube and Twitch to answer your questions about what’s been happening on the field. Make sure you hit us up in the chat rooms to get your comments and questions in about what’s transpired in practice.
Not only that, but the guys will have a special guest drop by to talk about his future exploits with the OBR.
OBR Weekly is a year-round chance to talk to veterans of the Browns scene, Fred Greetham and Barry McBride. The former has covered the team since the early 90s, and the latter built the OBR out of the ashes of Art Modell’s betrayal of Browns fans in 1995. Both enjoy spending their Wednesday evenings talking to regulars in the YouTube and Twitch chatrooms about the latest news around the Cleveland Browns.
Join us on YouTube
Join us on Twitch
Also available on Facebook and X.
OBR Roundtable: Did Kevin Stefanski Make Right Decision on Cleveland Browns Play-Calling?
On Thursday, Cleveland Browns Head Coach Kevin Stefanski announced he will continue to call plays for the Browns offense. The OBR staff provides their thoughts on Stefanski’s decision in this Week’s OBR Roundtable.
“You can tell everybody I’m going to call the plays this year, so we’ll get that out of the way,” Stefanski said. “I know everybody’s interested. Any decision I make for our football team, I take a lot of information in, I try to listen to a lot of people and make decisions.”
Since taking over as head coach in 2020, Stefanski has been calling plays for the Browns. Stefanski highlighted his belief in the offensive coaching staff after establishing his role as play-caller would not change in the upcoming 2024 season.
“Ultimately, what I feel really, really confident in is our offensive staff,” Stefanski said. “I feel really strongly about Coach Dorsey and the entire offensive staff. So, we’ll continue to be an operation that works together. It’s never been a one-man show.”
He emphasized Dorsey’s influence on their offensive approach this season, crediting him for implementing the offense and effectively communicating with the entire offense staff. Stefanksi expressed that Dorsey would be highly involved in helping him on gameday and establishing the weekly game plan.
“Ken Dorsey is going to be a huge, huge help to me – not just on gameday but throughout the week,” Stefanski said. “He has a huge influence on what we do offensively already. The things that we’re implementing, things that he’s putting together, the way he works with our offensive staff. Those are things that I don’t take lightly.”
The decision is a hot topic for Browns fans and the media. In this week’s roundtable, we asked members of the OBR team to express their opinions on Stefanski’s decision to continue calling the plays for the Browns offense.
Pete Smith
There’s no place where head coach Kevin Stefanski can make a greater impact than being in constant communication with his quarterback. Deshaun Watson has said he found the notes Stefanski provides beneficial and that was a factor in the Browns being able to win games with four different quarterbacks in 2023. Nothing about this diminishes what Ken Dorsey brings to this staff or the offense. This is undeniably the best path forward on offense for the Browns.
Fred Greetham
With 6-7 new offensive coaches on the staff, Kevin Stefanski is the stabilizing factor and the constant that has been on the offensive side of the ball. It is one of the strengths of his coaching style. He will take input from all, as he’s done in the past, but will make the final call. Deshaun Watson is comfortable with Stefanski calling the plays, and that is a big factor, as well.
Brad Ward
Stefanski is a gifted play-caller who does a terrific job sequencing plays and setting up his offense for success. He and Deshaun Watson have played 12 games under this model, and Watson has expressed his confidence in Stefanski’s ability to frame the game situation for him while communicating the play call into his helmet.
Stefanski has proven that he can be effective as a head coach and play-caller simultaneously. Some of the best coaches in football do the same thing. I believe Dorsey and the rest of the offensive staff will be involved in the collaborative play-calling process and that Dorsey’s input from up in the booth will benefit the Browns offense.
Abby Mueller
This was the best decision for the team. Kevin has proven that he brings a lot of value to this team as a play-caller and has been a consistent voice in the offense over the last few seasons. He has always talked about how he looks at play calling as a collaborative process and is constantly listening & learning from the rest of his staff. He brought in people like Ken Dorsey to provide a different perspective and to help get the best out of Deshaun Watson. That is still the primary goal, and I think they have the right people in the building to do this.
Jack Duffin
For me, the judgment on whether he made the right call goes way beyond just who is calling plays. He is certainly capable of doing that. The bigger question is, what are his additional responsibilities during the game above this? Items like timeouts, challenges, fourth-down decisions, and tendencies.
Is he willing to put this power in someone else’s hands so that they can tell him which of those decisions to make? You can’t afford for him to be rewatching the play on the Jumbotron for a potential challenge when he needs to be deciding what they call next.
If he is willing to lean on a member of the coaching/analytics team for things like this, then he is ideally suited to be responsible for play-calling.
Sam Penix
Stefanski is not a perfect playcaller, with an annoying habit of running the ball on second-and-long to set up third-and-long, but he is still one of the better play-callers in the NFL and will be entering his sixth season in that role.
He spent the offseason revamping his offensive staff, bringing in younger coaches with fresh ideas in an attempt to transform a Cleveland scheme that had grown rather stale.
Regardless of his quarterback, Stefanski’s time with the Browns has consistently seen him call plays that get wide receivers open down the field, and that should continue in an evolved system featuring the input of Ken Dorsey, Andy Dickerson, Nick Charlton, Tommy Rees, and other new faces.
The Browns have likely known Stefanski would be the play-caller since Dorsey was hired back in early February, and they have certainly been focusing on how to best utilize the skillsets of their weapons, most importantly, Deshaun Watson. Keeping Stefanski as the play-caller and adding Dorsey and others in a modern collaborative process is the correct decision.
Michael Keefe
I will never understand the obsession in this town with Kevin Stefanski and play-calling responsibilities. The discussion has become a staple in this town, an annual tradition that rivals the likes of Christmas and blacking out in the Muni Lot before Week One.
As shown by his TWO Coach of the Year awards, Stefanski continues to prove that he is not just an incredibly talented play-caller but also extremely adept at juggling all the roles of the head coach. As Stefanski himself said, play-calling is a collaborative effort. While Stefanski will be the one communicating plays to Watson, the decisions will be made with the input of Ken Dorsey and the rest of the offensive staff. This was absolutely the best move for the team and I’m glad they’re sticking with it.
Casey Kinnamon
There is a small, but immensely vocal, minority that wants to boil Stefanski retaining the play-calling duties down to ego. I must have missed the press conference where Stefanski came off as a power-hungry dictator. Stefanski was always going to do what he felt was best for the Cleveland Browns, and what he thought was best was for him to remain the voice in Deshaun Watson’s helmet.
If this were all about ego, then the two-time coach of the year would have just run it back with the same offensive staff and kept it status quo. This entire offseason has been about growth and fostering the best environment for Watson to thrive in.
But the reality is, under Stefanski, the Browns offense has always been a collaborative effort by the offensive staff. The difference this year is that Stefanski felt he needed to revamp those collaborating with him to get the best out of his quarterback. Ken Dorsey, Tommy Rees, Nick Charlton, Chad O’Shea, and Bill Musgrave will all play a significant role in what this offense looks like on Sundays. However, their voices will be funneled through Stefanski into Watson’s helmet.
Kevin Stefanski is excellent at sequencing plays and providing easy answers for quarterbacks. Is Stefanski flawless as a play-caller? No. But there is no such thing as a flawless play-caller in the NFL. The fact that there are San Francisco fans who would like Kyle Shanahan to hand over play-calling duties should tell you all that you need to know.
