With Kevin Stefanski reportedly taking a head coaching position, here are three potential candidates for the next Minnesota Vikings offensive coordinator.
A day after the season ended for the Minnesota Vikings, they will now be on the search for a new Offensive Coordinator. According to multiple reports, current Vikings offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski is leaving the organization to be the next head coach of the Cleveland Browns after spending his first full season in Minnesota as the offensive coordinator for the Vikings.
NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport was the first to report the news:
Sources: The #Browns are planning to hire #Vikings OC Kevin Stefanski as their new head coach. Runner-up last year, winner this year.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) January 12, 2020
The news came less than 24 hours after the Vikings fell to the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Divisional Round of the playoffs on Saturday in Santa Clara. In that game, Stefanski and Minnesota offense struggled to get on a roll in an ugly loss to the clearly superior San Francisco squad, with the Vikings putting together arguably their worst offensive performance of the season.
Going into the weekend’s Divisional Round matchups in the NFL Playoffs, news began to circulate surrounding the increasing likeliness of Stefanski being interested in the Browns opening and taking the job once Minnesota’s season came to a close.
Stefanski, who has spent a total of 14 seasons with the Vikings in a few different positions, was initially a finalist for the Cleveland job when it was open prior to the start of the 2019 campaign. That was until the Browns ended up hiring Freddie Kitchens for the job.
After firing Kitchens after one season at the helm in Cleveland, the Browns opened up a search for yet another head coach and Stefanski was one of eight people who interviewed for the job.
Throughout the regular season, Stefanski orchestrated an offense that ranked eighth in the league in points per game with 25.4 a contest. In the running game, the Vikings ranked sixth with 133.3 yards on the ground on average, while helping Cousins tally a passer rating of 107.4 (fourth-best in the NFL) along with 26 passing touchdowns and a total of just six interceptions.
With an offense that has the firepower and personnel that Minnesota currently has, Stefanski has done a nice job in helping the Vikings return to the postseason this year.
Now, he will have the tough test of trying to carry success into Cleveland to help pull the Browns out of what has seemed like an endless cycle of drama and frustration both on and off the field traditionally.
With Stefanski now on his way out of Minnesota, let’s look at three potential candidates that could step in and replace Stefanski in leading the Vikings offense in 2020.