Kevin Stefanski, the head coach and continued play-caller of the Cleveland Browns, went on Barstool’s Pardon My Take podcast and was grilled for about 20 minutes’ worth of questions. One question they asked him revolved around his philosophy of “establishing the run.” And Stefanski jumped in quickly to debunk the need for a strong run game in order to throw, calling it a “fallacy.”
And he’s right.
During his four seasons as a play-caller (one season in Minnesota, three seasons with the Browns), Stefanski has fallen below 10th in dropback Expected Points Added just one time. He finished fifth in 2019 with the Vikings, seventh in 2020, 21st in 2021, and was 10th through the first 11 games of 2022 with journeyman Jacoby Brissett under center.
There is no evidence to support that a team needs a strong run game to get the play-action working or to throw the football successfully.
"You're not going to establish the run first?"
Kevin Stefanski: "That's a fallacy- you don't have to establish the run to throw it [..] play action, it's been proven, that you don't need to have a good run attack or be running the ball [..] there's a lot of good data behind it" pic.twitter.com/QSj4oyerBe
— Computer Cowboy (@benbbaldwin) March 8, 2023
