Browns trying to bounce back with 'best football on Sunday' against Jaguars

BEREA — The season-opening disaster against the Dallas Cowboys wasn't the first time the Browns have laid an egg in their first game during coach Kevin Stefanski's tenure. They did it the very first time Stefanski coached the Browns.

In fact, it took Stefanski until his third and fourth seasons to actually start the season 1-0, which is what the Browns did in 2022 and 2023. However, despite having started 0-1 in his first two seasons as head coach, there's one thing his Browns teams have never done to this point.

They've never been 0-2. That's what they're trying to avoid on Sunday when they go on the road to play the Jacksonville Jaguars.

"I mean, it helps when you have a coach like that. He’s got that bit of his dad [former NBA team executive Ed Stefanski] in him with that basketball mentality — you don’t lose two in a row — and just making sure we attack each and every day," defensive end Myles Garrett said Friday. "There’s no days off, whether it’s a Monday or Tuesday, we’re finding a way to get better working on our bodies, being in the [regeneration] room, focusing on play calls.

"And he’s in constant communication with multiple guys, whether that’s leadership or not, making sure that we’re focusing on the game and whether you’re getting better physically or mentally. You’re trying to make strides in one or the other daily, and he’s always on it and he’s always trying to find a way to keep us prepared and not letting our heads get too big when we win and not drop too low when we lose."

It's not just the way the Browns have rebounded from opening-day losses under Stefanski, either. It's how they've responded to losses in general.

The Browns have had four two-game losing streaks, two of which occurred during their playoff season last year. They had one three-game losing streak in 2021, and they lost four in a row in 2022.

"I think big message for me with our team is always, you don’t ever want to overreact, but you really don’t want to underreact either," Stefanski said. "You want to make sure that what you need to get fixed, you get fixed with urgency. So that’s really been our message, and that’s really a message every year whenever you get an outcome that you didn’t want, that you didn’t desire. You got to do something about it.

"So that’s what we have used this week, trying to fix some of those mistakes, clean up some of those things and then be able to play our best football on Sunday.”

The Browns most certainly did not play their best football last Sunday in the 33-17 loss to the Cowboys. That was most true when it came to the side of the football that is Stefanski's specialty.

The offense was anemic, save for an opening field goal drive — which started on Dallas' side of the 50 — and a 15-play, 64-yard touchdown drive that came with the result well in hand. Those two possessions accounted for half of the four drives in the game that gained 10 yards or more, with the third being a third-quarter touchdown drive to make it 27-10.

By the end of the week, those numbers weren't as important to the Browns as the urgency with which Stefanski talked about getting back to work. It was something the veterans in the locker room felt even without their coach's words.

"It's just something that I've seen," wide receiver Amari Cooper said. "We got to be ready to play, we got to go out there, and the theme of the offense is go out there and score points every drive, and we didn't do that. So we need more urgency in that regard."

That mindset worked a year ago for the Browns in gaining both their second 11-win regular season under Stefanski, as well as their second playoff appearance. A year ago, it was injuries, including massive ones to the quarterback position and to star running back Nick Chubb, which seemed to be the boulder he and his team were perpetually trying to push up the mountain.

The injury issues have already returned, with five defensive players going on injured reserve this week. So, too, have quarterback Deshaun Watson's legal troubles — which the Browns invited upon themselves when they traded for him with the Houston Texans — when a new lawsuit was filed against him in Texas alleging sexual assault on a first date.

Some of those issues are, in the grand scheme of real life compared to football, much bigger than others. Still, they've reached a confluence two weeks into this season to create a situation with which all involved have to deal.

"It's not just the coaches, not just the players," linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah said. "I think it's the whole entire organization because this organization has been through so much that when something like a loss to Cowboys in the first game happens, we're able to regroup and be able to understand that we've been through these challenges before and we know how to overcome it. … So I'm not glad that we lost the game, but again, we learn from those mistakes and find a way to conceptualize it for our benefit."

Chris Easterling can be reached at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com. Read more about the Browns at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/browns. Follow him on X at @ceasterlingABJ

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Browns trying to bounce back with 'best football on Sunday' against Jaguars