Browns lose Stefanski for playoff game due to COVID
CLEVELAND » Amid a masked, muted celebration in the locker room after the Browns ended the NFL’s longest playoff drought, coach Kevin Stefanski asked for a game ball and then told Pro Bowl guard Joel Bitonio to step forward.
Stefanski flipped the ball to Bitonio, who had survived seven long seasons, 0-16 in 2017, the Johnny Manziel mess and numerous coaching changes. “You’re going to the playoffs, 75,” Stefanki told Bitonio.
Two days later, nothing is certain with the Browns.
Positive COVID-19 tests have knocked Stefanski, Bitonio, wide receiver KhaDarel Hodge and at least two assistant coaches out of Cleveland’s wild-card game at Pittsburgh on Sunday night — the Browns’ first playoff appearance since the 2002 season.
The Browns announced Tuesday — 18 years to the day since their last playoff game — that Stefanski tested positive for the coronavirus, which has plagued the team in recent weeks and has thrown Cleveland’s plans this week into disarray for the wild-card game.
In less than 48 hours, joy for the
Browns and their fans long-suffering fans was all but extinguished.
“Very sad,” Browns center and NFLPA President JC Tretter said. “It’s really unfortunate.”
Now, after beating the Steelers last Sunday to make the playoff field, the Browns are implementing contingency plans drawn up
when the pandemic began.
Stefanski, who in his first year returned the Browns to respectability, can only coach virtually from home this week. He’ll be replaced by special teams coordinator Mike Priefer, and the Browns will have to make other staff adjustments as tight ends coach Drew Petzing and
defensive backs coach Jeff Howard are also out.
Despite the Browns’ issues — they now have eight rotational players and five coaches on the COVID-19 list — league spokesman Brian McCarthy said the game is on schedule.
McCarthy added the league is continuing to conduct contact tracing to identify any possible highrisk close contacts. NFL rules state that anyone testing positive must be away from the team at least 10 days.
“If any players or personnel are identified as such, they would remain apart from the team and facilities for five days from the last exposure to a positive individual,” McCarthy wrote in an email. “They would be eligible to return to the team and play in the game.”
It’s still possible the Browns will lose other players after contact tracing is completed.
The genomic sequencing conducted by the league and its medical partner last week showed Cleveland’s cases were unconnected, meaning the cases came from outside and weren’t spread within the team’s headquarters.
Tretter said on a union conference call that he expects the building to remain closed Wednesday, when the Browns were scheduled to have their first practice this week.
Tretter said he had been in touch with Bitonio.
“I feel for him,” Tretter said. “Obviously with what he’s gone through, what he’s endured over his career and finally finding that success for the first time and then it being taken away at the last second, it’s hard. I feel for all the guys that won’t be able to play for the first playoff game.