Insider shares if Browns' Kevin Stefanski, Andrew Berry are on hot seat

Cleveland Browns fans understandably continue to wonder if head coach Kevin Stefanski and/or general manager Andrew Berry are on the hot seat after the club went 3-14 last season. 

For a mailbag published on Sunday night, Browns insider Tony Grossi of ESPN Cleveland/The Land on Demand addressed how team owner Jimmy Haslam views Stefanski and Berry this summer.

"Let’s bury the narrative of Stefanski and Andrew Berry being on the hot seat until, say, 2027," Grossi said. "That gives them two seasons to develop the next QB."

Stefanski earned Coach of the Year Award honors for the 2020 and 2023 seasons after he guided those Cleveland squads to playoff berths. That said, he and Berry will forever be linked with the "big swing and miss" that was the Browns trading for quarterback Deshaun Watson and handing him a fully guaranteed five-year, $230M contract in March 2022. 

Watson has made just 19 regular-season starts during his Cleveland tenure and may never play in another meaningful game for the club after he suffered a torn Achilles last October and then tore the Achilles again during his recovery. 

Stefanski and Berry restructured Cleveland's quarterback room by acquiring veteran Joe Flacco, former Pittsburgh Steelers flop Kenny Pickett, 2025 third-round draft pick Dillon Gabriel and 2025 fifth-rounder Shedeur Sanders this offseason. Sanders seemingly began the first Monday of August as the club's fourth-choice option at the position, while Gabriel reportedly is "just not a good quarterback" at this stage of his development. 

Flacco seems to be on track to serve as the Browns' QB1 for their regular-season opener against the Cincinnati Bengals on Sept. 7. That said, Cleveland did pick up an extra 2026 first-round draft pick back in April. Grossi suggested that Stefanski and Berry "should have the opportunity to draft their quarterback of the future" next spring. 

As of Monday morning, DraftKings Sportsbook had the Browns at +115 betting odds to notch over 5.5 wins during the upcoming season. If Cleveland falls short of six total victories, convincing fans that Stefanski and Berry deserve another year to try to turn things around could prove to be a less-than-desirable task for Haslam come January 2026.