Kevin Stefanski Talks on how Browns Will Handle West Coast Swing, Getting the Rookies in for Camp

Cleveland Browns will play back-to-back weeks out west, which is not ideal in any way.
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Cleveland Browns were handed down their schedule this past week from the NFL and a pair of dates between November and December immediately jumped off. Cleveland will play in Denver against the Broncos on Nov. 26, then in Los Angeles against the Rams on Dec. 3. That’s a tough stretch of travel for teams typical but the Browns may counter it.

“I think eliminating a trip, from a rest and recovery standpoint, and then I think it’s never a bad thing when you can get your team together in a setting,” said head coach Kevin Stefanski.

It sounds like the Browns will be staying out west after their game with the Broncos, rather than making the trip back to Ohio then to California. Anyone who has traveled knows it puts a different kind of fatigue on you, especially long airplane rides.

“It’s not finalized yet, but that’s definitely something that we’re considering, is staying out there in LA after Denver.”

Yesterday, the Browns started their intro into the rookie minicamp which runs May 13-15. It’s the first time the Browns will have all of their rookies together, along with tryout players and a few others. Stefanski implied the team uses this to get down to some of the basics, getting the younger guys adapted.

“As you can imagine, it’s like drinking through a fire hose for these guys when it’s the amount of information that we’re throwing at them,” he said. “So just breaking the huddle, getting lined up, can be a challenge. You mentioned Ced (Cedric Tillman), he was really good getting out of the huddle. I thought DTR (Dorian Thompson-Robinson) did a very nice job in the huddle, explaining where everybody’s lining up, getting them out of the huddle, called the plays really, really well. It’s elementary. I mean, we’re really football 101 right now in terms of scheme, but it’s a new language and it’s easy for me to say because I’ve been around this language, but I think they’re all working really hard.”

Stefanski pointed out that WR Cedric Tillman and QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson were two that stood out from a mental standpoint early on. Funny enough, the two know each other from back in their high school days.

“I’ve been around the rookie mini camps where you bring in 70 guys and you’re doing full team drills and seven on seven. Those type of things. For us, we just feel like the best thing to do is to slow it down. It’s the basics. It’s how to get into a stance, how to come out of your stance. So it’s really very entry-level stuff, if you will. But that’s what we’re here to do. It’s skill development. It’s fundamentals, techniques, right now, is the focus.”

Cleveland did their homework on the rookies, so coming in they have a pretty good feel on all seven of their draft picks. Even the nine undrafted players they brought in aren’t foreign to them.

“I think that’s every year at rookie minicamp. You have a pretty good feel of these players. We have good intel on them before we get them, but we understand how they learn best and that’s where we as coaches need to do our best to teach these guys in whatever setting works for them.

The team is taking things slow through minicamp, there’s no reason to expect highlight plays coming from the practices or anything. Cleveland is essentially doing a three-day walk-through.

“So even though we have a ton of meeting time, that meeting time may, ‘hey, let’s walk out in the indoor and walk through this’ or ‘hey, let’s take a breather here and let’s talk through this concept.’ So we really are going at their pace right now to make sure that we can ensure that they’re going to get this for the long term.”

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