CLEVELAND, Dec. 27 – The Cleveland Browns are a franchise perpetually trapped in its own shadow, a place where hope goes to die, often at the hands of the quarterback position. Yet, amidst another lost season and the suffocating weight of a historic financial misstep, the team’s longest-tenured player is issuing a plea for stability.
Joel Bitonio, the All-Pro guard who has seen more coaching regimes rise and fall than most see in a lifetime, believes the answer to the Browns’ endless cycle of dysfunction isn’t another reset. It’s Kevin Stefanski.
Bitonio’s endorsement comes at a critical juncture. The Browns’ current irrelevance is a direct consequence of the calamitous decision to trade three first-round picks for Deshaun Watson, then hand him a fully guaranteed $230 million contract. The move not only exiled Baker Mayfield who has since resurrected his career in Tampa Bay but also shackled the franchise with a financial albatross that will haunt their salary cap through the 2028 season.
With Watson reduced to a massive financial commitment on the roster, Cleveland’s brass has been forced to cycle through quarterbacks, spending the majority of the 2025 season starting two rookies. The results have been predictable, save for an elite defensive unit that has often looked like it’s playing a different sport than its offensive counterpart.
Despite the offensive ineptitude, a productive 2025 draft class featuring emerging talents like Carson Schwesinger, Quinshon Judkins, and Harold Fannin Jr. has offered a glimmer of hope. It’s this young core, combined with Stefanski’s steady hand, that Bitonio believes is worth building around.
Where we’re at right now, we don’t want to be there, Bitonio admitted. But I think if we get the right pieces and we keep improving, I think that’s a guy you can build around. Two-time coach of the year, he has respect of his peers. He’s even-keeled.
Bitonio’s perspective is forged in the fires of Cleveland’s recent history. Before Stefanski arrived, he weathered the storms of Mike Pettine, Hue Jackson, Gregg Williams, and Freddie Kitchens. He knows what dysfunction looks like.
He also knows what success looks like. Bitonio was a cornerstone of the team that broke an 18-year playoff drought in 2020, pushing the eventual AFC champion Chiefs to the brink in the Divisional Round. He sees Stefanski not as part of the problem, but as the solution to a franchise that has lost its way.
I think there’s also a history, Bitonio noted, drawing a sharp contrast. Some of the other coaches that I’ve played for did, they had three wins. They didn’t have 11 wins. They didn’t have playoff wins. They didn’t have a six-year sample size.
Until that quarterback position is solved in the NFL, it is hard to win games. It is the most important position in sports. And you’re trying to build a defense that has shown that they can be elite and you want to build around these great quarterbacks. – Joel Bitonio, Browns Guard
This quote cuts to the heart of the Browns’ predicament. Bitonio acknowledges the chilling reality that no amount of coaching or defensive prowess can overcome a void at the game’s most vital position. It’s a subtle acknowledgment of the Watson disaster without directly naming it, framing the issue as a universal NFL truth rather than a singular franchise failure.
