The morning after the Pittsburgh Steelers' Week 18 win over the Baltimore Ravens, one AFC North head coach finds himself out of a job, but it's not Ravens' John Harbaugh. On Monday morning, ESPN insider Adam Schefter reported that the Cleveland Browns have fired head coach Kevin Stefanski.
Interestingly, this firing comes after the Browns finished the 2025 season with back-to-back wins against AFC North opponents—beating the Steelers in Week 17 and the Cincinnati Bengals in the season finale on Sunday.
Stefanski had been the head coach of the Browns since 2020. In his first season, he led a previously 6-10 Browns team to an 11-5 record, which included a playoff berth and a 48-37 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Wild Card round of the playoffs. The Browns' head coach found another 11-win season in 2023.
As a result of his efforts, Stefanski earned the NFL Coach of the Year award twice. Unfortunately for Cleveland, the Browns are coming off back-to-back seasons with four wins or fewer. And that was the final straw.
The Cleveland Browns will have a new head coach when they face the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2025
While the Steelers shouldn't model the way they do business after the Browns, this is a good example of how it's okay to move on from someone considered to be a 'good' head coach when things are stale—a lesson Art Rooney II has yet to learn with Mike Tomlin.
Stefanski will no longer darken the doorway of Tomlin and the Steelers in the AFC North. Though the Browns haven't been a successful team, Stefanski has a .500 record as a head coach when facing Pittsburgh—going 6-6 all-time against the Steelers, including a playoff win. This is a better win percentage than John Harbaugh's all-time record against Pittsburgh (18-23 in the regular season and playoffs).
Now the Browns begin the search for a new head coach. Could their next hire finally be the coach who will turn the franchise around? Probably not. But the Steelers may no longer be dealing with a familiar face running the team (which could make it more difficult to game plan around the Browns).
Before Stefanski's sudden departure, there had not been a change at head coach in the AFC North in nearly six years. With the Bengals missing the playoffs yet again and the Ravens falling to meet expectations, perhaps more head coaching vacancies could be coming to this division.