As the Giants wrap up another miserable season this week, their coaching search is about to accelerate.
That doesn’t include Marcus Freeman, as he remains at Notre Dame.
But there are still plenty of interesting candidates — or potential candidates. Browns coach Kevin Stefanski is one of those who falls into the “potential” category and could be fired.
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But even if Stefanski is much better than Pat Shurmur (the bar is low there), would the Giants really hire another fired Browns coach?
If Mike Tomlin or John Harbaugh were somehow available, either one of them would obviously be far superior to Stefanski. But assuming they stay in Pittsburgh and Baltimore. Then what?
Well, there’s a good chance Stefanski will retire in Cleveland after this season. The Browns are 4-12. Last year their record was 3-14. But the year before, they went 11-6 (0-1 in the playoffs). From the 2020-22 season, they were 11-5, 8-9, and 7-10, with a wild-card playoff appearance in year one.
That kind of winning — even an eight-win season — is rare in Cleveland. Still, Stefanski was unable to build on 11 wins and a trip to the playoffs in 2023.
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He can obviously coach. And he’s still young, only 43 years old. He’s also a highly regarded offensive mind and quarterback shaper – something the Giants can capitalize on as they build around Jaxendat in the coming years.
But assuming the Browns lose to the Bengals on Sunday, Stefanski will wear the unhappy look of a coach who has gone just 7-27 in two years.
None of this means he’ll fail with the Giants — just as it’s unreasonable to compare him to Shurmur. Still, these comparisons are inevitable.
Shurmur went a disastrous 9-23 in two seasons as Giants coach in 2018-19. This is his second (and certainly last) time as a head coach. In the 2011-12 season, he also led the Browns to a record of 9 wins and 23 losses.
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The Giants justified hiring Shurmur by leveraging his experience as offensive coordinator in Philadelphia and Minnesota and believing that permanent dysfunction in Cleveland contributed more to Shurmur’s poor record than his own shortcomings.
Of course, Giants co-owners John Mara and Steve Tish were wrong about Shurmur — just as they were wrong about the five other coach/general managers hired since Tom Coughlin and Jerry Reese.
Mara and Tish missed Ben McAdoo, Shurmur, Joe Judge and Brian Daboll in coaching, and also turned their noses up at general managers Dave Gettleman and Joe Schoen, although the latter was somehow poised to return in 2026.
Would Stefanski — or another reasonably qualified winning coach — really want to work for Schön? That’s a big question Mara and Tisch will have to consider when evaluating this coaching search (and Schön’s future), as they’ll ideally find a coach with a proven track record.
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They haven’t hired a proven head coach since Coughlin in 2004. McAdoo, Judge and Daboll have never been head coaches. Shurmur had few experiences, and none of them were positive.
So at least Stefanski made the playoffs twice in six seasons in Cleveland. There’s a good chance he’ll eventually get another chance somewhere.
Are the Giants coming this offseason? Would he want them?
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