WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. — A brief practice to open training camp Thursday was followed by a surprise announcement: Cleveland Browns coach Kevin Stefanski will continue to call plays this season, his fifth year on the job.
Stefanski, who won his second NFL Coach of the Year award last season, previously would not say if he’d retain the play-calling duties or hand them over to Ken Dorsey, who was hired as the team’s offensive coordinator in January. Stefanski usually needs to be prodded before he shares even the most minute detail about the team’s operation. But after a 40-minute practice focused on drills and installation, he decided to end any discussion about the play-calling part of things.
“Any decision I make for our football team, I try to take a lot of information in and listen to a lot of people,” Stefanski said. “I wanted to get that (announcement) out of the way.”
Dorsey previously coached mobile quarterbacks Cam Newton in Carolina and Josh Allen in Buffalo, and it’s still likely that more designed rollouts and read options will be introduced this year for Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson, who’s recovering from shoulder surgery and has played in just 12 games in two seasons with Cleveland. Stefanski said Dorsey will continue to be “the main voice” with the quarterbacks and that the play calling and game planning will continue to be done collaboratively.
“Ultimately, what I feel really, really confident in is our offensive staff,” Stefanski said. “I feel really strongly about Coach Dorsey and the entire offensive staff, so we will continue to be an operation that works together. It’s never been a one-man show.”
In what was an unexpected shakeup, the Browns fired offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt, running backs coach Stump Mitchell and tight ends coach T.C. McCartney January. They later lost offensive line coach Bill Callahan — a former head coach who helped build the Cleveland run game — to the Tennessee Titans, where his son, Brian, is now the head coach. In addition to Dorsey, the team also hired Andy Dickerson as offensive line coach, Duce Staley as running backs coach and Tommy Rees with the title of tight ends coach and pass game specialist. Nick Charlton was added with the title of offensive assistant and run game specialist, and Roy Istvan was added as assistant offensive line coach.
Stefanski and Dorsey took turns calling plays during the team’s spring practices. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll see the Browns go from the installation stage to more competitive refinement stages. But for now, it’s a gradual transition into full training camp — and back closer to full health for Watson.
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Watson threw in every other practice over the team’s four weeks of on-field work in the spring. Stefanski said Watson’s throwing schedule early in camp will be “a little more than that” and include team drills, but said the team will be “smart” in how it handles Watson. Last week, Watson said he’d been throwing regularly and had “no setbacks” over the summer, but he didn’t directly answer when asked if he expected to be fully cleared.
The Browns will hold seven practices at the Greenbrier Resort before returning to their usual training facility on Aug. 4. Stefanski also spent the first week-plus of last year’s camp at the Greenbrier for team-building reasons.
Injury update
The Browns will go through at least much of their training camp and preseason without key defenders Greg Newsome II and Dalvin Tomlinson.
Newsome, the team’s top slot cornerback and a 2021 first-round pick, needed surgery to repair a hamstring injury he suffered while training earlier this month. Stefanski said he’s “hopeful” but not certain that Newsome will play in the Browns’ Sept. 8 season opener against the Dallas Cowboys. Stefanski said Tomlinson will have arthroscopic knee surgery on Friday, with a timeline to return also uncertain.
Last spring, the Browns picked up Newsome’s fully guaranteed option for 2025. He’s made 39 starts for Cleveland over his first three seasons, and last season he played 86 percent of the team’s defensive snaps.
Newsome, Denzel Ward and Martin Emerson Jr. form what’s arguably the league’s best cornerback trio. Second-year player Cameron Mitchell is probably next in line at slot cornerback in Newsome’s absence, but Mitchell didn’t participate in minicamp or Thursday’s first camp practice due to an undisclosed injury that a team source described as minor. Veteran Tony Brown II and second-year player Kahlef Hailassie figure to see increased opportunities with the team’s top defensive rotations throughout camp.
The Browns have built quality depth at defensive tackle, but the 30-year-old Tomlinson is their best. He had three sacks in 2023, his first season with the Browns, and excelled as a dirty-work player in the trenches who freed up two of Cleveland’s Pro Bowlers, edge rusher Myles Garrett and linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah.
Tomlinson has been durable throughout his career. He didn’t miss a game from 2017 to 2021 before missing four in 2022, and he played every game the Browns’ starters played last season.
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Though Garrett was among the group of Browns’ players who spent most of Thursday’s practice working on a side field with a member of the team’s training staff, he participated in some of the half-speed install sessions later in practice. Garrett, the reigning NFL Defensive Player of the Year, does not have an injury designation and often works on a limited practice schedule.
Newsome is on the non-football injury list and Tomlinson is on the active-physically unable to perform list. Those designations leave the door open for the Browns to begin the regular season without either player on the active roster, but no decisions have to be made until the leaguewide roster cut from 90 to 53 on Aug. 27.
Both of the team’s 2023 opening-day offensive tackles, Jedrick Wills Jr. and Jack Conklin, remain on the PUP list while rehabbing knee injuries. Conklin tore his ACL in last year’s season opener, and Wills missed the second half of the season with a torn MCL. James Hudson III lined up at left tackle in practice Thursday with the first offense, while Dawand Jones played on the right side.
Running back Nick Chubb (knee) joined Garrett, Mitchell, wide receiver Jerry Jeudy (leg) and tight end David Njoku (undisclosed) in working on the side. Chubb remains on the PUP list, and Stefanski said the team has “no date in mind” for potential returns for Chubb, Wills or Conklin. Running back Jerome Ford missed Thursday’s practice for personal reasons, but Stefanski said the team expects him back soon.
(Photo: Nick Cammett / Getty Images)
