August 1, 2025 • 9 mins
In this episode of Building Brownstown, two-time NFL Coach of the Year Kevin Stefanski discusses the advantages of the enclosed Huntington Bank Stadium. He believes the new stadium will create a home-field advantage by amplifying the noise from the crowd, making it difficult for opposing teams to communicate and operate on the field. Stefanski states that the enclosed stadium will be a "first-class facility" that will amplify the "rabid" energy of the Dawg Pound, making it an unbelievable environment.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome into another edition of building Brown Town.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
And today I am joined by the two time NFL
Coach of the Year and the head coach of your
Cleveland Browns, Kevin Stefancy coach.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Good to be with you, Yeah, great to be with you,
Nathan all right.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
You always talk about the fans taking care of the
fans having that home field advantage.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
When you think.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
About being able to put the best fans in the
NFL into a world class facility, the enclosed Huntington Bank Stadium,
what does that mean to you?
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Yeah, I mean I just can imagine, you know.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
I think about, obviously the visuals of it, and I've
seen the renderings of how close our fans are to
the field, which is an amazing thing both for our
fans and for our football team to get them closer
to our opponents. But my mind goes right to the
decibel level of what that creates. And I was blessed
to be around when they built a beautiful stadium in Minnesota,
(00:47):
US Bank Stadium. It is really loud, and I can
tell you I can remember being a young coach in
the Metrodome, which was loud, and they built this beautiful,
world class, first class facility, and I I was thinking
to myself, is this going to be as loud as
the Metrodome? And I think the first game of the
season that year was versus the Packers maybe Sunday at Football.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Not positive about that.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
But I remember the first third down of that game
and the level went to a decimal level I'd never heard.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
I mean, honestly, I never heard.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
In playing football, whether it's at or coaching football at
Seattle in New Orleans.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
It was ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
And talk about an advantage for the home team when
it's really hard for the other team to operate and
get in and out of the huddle and do checks
at the line of scrimmage on third down, it is
such a huge advantage. So my mind immediately goes while
beautiful and I'm sure there's great bathrooms and concessions and
all that, but that noise level is such a huge
advantage for that home team when you can have it
(01:46):
bouncing off the walls like it will be at our place.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Thanks people talk about already come into the dog Pound.
It's difficult to deal with. It is a tough environment
to play and because of the crowd, and now that
sounds not going to be going out, it's going to
be coming right back down.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
It's just going to be amplified.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
I mean, the dog Pound has for years been just
the core of who we are from a fandom and
their effect that they have on the game. Already, it's
a rabid group in that Dog Pound, And all you're
doing in our building is just now turning up the.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Dial, which is going to be a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Now when you're on offense, that's great for the defense, right,
all that noise when you're on offense, ideal conditions, This
is kind of how you came into the league, right
in beautiful conditions. You knew that, hey, whatever we put
in the game plan, mother nature is not going to
wreck that. Just kind of from a coaching standpoint, from
an execution standpoint, all of it. What's it like, nohen
going into every home game, we are going to play
(02:40):
under ideal conditions.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Yeah, you know, the skill players love that. I back
quarterbacks love that. And you look around the league and
you know playing indoors has its advantages and it certainly
does for that offense, for the quarterback, for the kicking game. Now,
there's always going to be elements that you're dealing with
of course, even within the game, it doesn't mean that
the ability to.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Be physical leaves you. You can be and you can think.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
About the teams that play indoors now and have played
indoors historically that still play physical brand of football. So
I don't think you don't lose that just because it's
an indoor stadium at all. But when it comes to
precision in the past game with skill players, I certainly
think you gained that.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
You and I had an opportunity to do an event
a couple of days ago where you brought out some
notes from Brett Farre's time in Minnesota when you were
new into the business. He probably had to think it
was great. He did deal with lambeau Field, and then
he comes in here he's like, oh, it's perfect.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Yeah, I'm telling you those guys, I think they take
that into account when they're deciding what teams to go
to as.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Well later career. It could be a great recruiting.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Tool, yep.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
I can think of some quarterbacks that get in later
in their year they're like, Okay, I'll go play indoors
for how many games? Yeah, So there's something to be
said for that. On the sake of the offense and
for our defense they get the bet. While you say, hey,
well the opposing offense has an advantage, Well, our defense
also gets the advantage of the decibels being turned up exponentially.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
And is there something to the speed that you know
some of these indoor games are played.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
It.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
I go back and think of you know, ab started
also with an indoor team in Indianapolis, and how they
would get those speed ends free Ny and mathis because
they could take advantage of that fast track.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
And there's a different way.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
To kind of maybe craft your team to really maximize
only the home field advantage of the sound, but of
the environment.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Without a doubt, I think speed becomes paramount when you're
talking about offense, defense or special teams. You're talking about
constructing a team that is built on speed. And again,
I hope that doesn't sound like you're getting away from physicality.
There's speed in physicality. We like pulling guards that can
really move and turn a corner. So I just think
it certainly changes the game a bit, but I think
(04:42):
it changes it for the better.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
So you kind of said anecdotal eight quarterbacks love to
come here. Have you ever met a quarterback that like
playing outdoors when they like playing indoors.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
They're lying if they say they do.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
I think those guys like the elements to be you know,
clean for them. Sick and pitch and catch doesn't change
the fact that we loved playing at Huntington bank Field
and we love going on the road. And there's gonna
be December games that you're playing in January games that
you're playing outdoors, but in front of our fans. To
play in that environment, with that amazing first class facility
(05:14):
for that environment for them, in an atmosphere that I
think will just be I just I can't imagine. The
dog Pound is fun already, what it looks like, what
it's going to be.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
I can't wait to see it.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
That wall is going to be incredible for the dog
Pound there. When you think about, you know, part of
this business is you'd yet to draft players, but then
there's free agency, there's recruiting of players when you have
a first class so that you saw first hand in Minnesota,
you went from not as good gaven had to be
outdoors for a little bit to then here you go
into the US Bank Stadium, which is considered by many
(05:47):
to be one of the best in the league, if
not the best until of course Huntington bank Field comes along.
How did that kind of help in terms of you
saw players who wanted to come play there.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Yeah. Absolutely, Listen, it's recruiting.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
We know that when we have this beautiful facility, we're
gonna take those free agents and bring them right to midfield.
I can picture it already, and you're going to put
their name and their jersey up on the screen. And
it's a pretty special thing to think about having those
guys in a world class facility, that they're going to
see our building with our fans right on top of them.
(06:22):
I mean, they're talk about support from the team. I
often tell the team, hey, the fans aren't coming down
out of the stands, so they may feel like they
are in this place, and certainly our opponents are going
to feel that. But to feel that sense of community,
to feel that bond with our fans that close to
the field, it'll be like nothing else.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
It's gonna be awesome. I really I'm excited about it now.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
When you kind of think about you and ab As
I talked about kind of both started there. From a
coaching perspective, when you know you can eliminate variables, and
that if you have the better game plan and you
have the better execution and the better team, you're going
to win more often not when you can eliminate some
of those extraneous things. Does that kind of shape how
you think about, you know, the Cleveland Browns going forward,
(07:02):
and really to me, it sounds like it'd be the
ideal environment from a coaching standpoint, because we if we
execute and we have the better plan, we're going to win.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Yeah. I think it's interesting.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
You do, obviously eliminate variables, but for both teams, it's
going to be that environment where it's going to be
who executes better. It's not going to be who plays
better in this environment because of this variable. It's gonna
be who plays better, who who blocks, tackles, throws better,
who runs better? And that's it gets really to the
(07:33):
core of it. You know, I think back to so
many of our great Super Bowls. They're played in ideal
conditions so that you see the very best versus the
very best.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
I imagine as a coach as you assemble this team
and you continue to build the Cleveland Browns looking forward
even to twenty twenty nine, that if we put the
best team out there, We're going to win more often
than not when we control that environment and we've got
the best fans making life hard. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
The part that, again from my chair, that fires me
up the most is just imagining our fans in that
building and how loud it's going to be.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I mean it's going to be. Again, you think about
the loud buildings right now.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
I think about Seattle, I think about New Orleans, I
think about Minnesota. That vaults you into that group with
our fan base. Man, it's it's gonna be unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
People may not understand what are the challenges you're calling plays?
What are the challenges when you can produce that kind
of an environment.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Yeah, you know, as a fan base, we want our
fans to affect the game, and our fans are I've
used the word before, a rabbit. I mean it's true,
they're there, they're in the ear of that defense a
second that they're on the field, and that that's a
big advantage because on offense, you're trying to communicate personnels,
you're trying to communicate formations, motions, those type of things.
(08:43):
When you get the third down and you're in the
shotgun and they're on the silent count and Miles Garrett's
on the other side and he can time up that
silent count. That's a huge advantage for the Cleveland Browns.
I think that's where our fans play such a huge
part in that advantage.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
This is going to be awesome.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
I cannot wait and coachpreciate the time and I can
tell you're fired up about it. We got a lot
of work to do in Huntington bank Field for now,
but the enclosed stadium that is going to be a blast.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Yeah. Thanks Jasy,
Welcome into another edition of building Brown Town.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
And today I am joined by the two time NFL
Coach of the Year and the head coach of your
Cleveland Browns, Kevin Stefancy coach.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Good to be with you, Yeah, great to be with you,
Nathan all right.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
You always talk about the fans taking care of the
fans having that home field advantage.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
When you think.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
About being able to put the best fans in the
NFL into a world class facility, the enclosed Huntington Bank Stadium,
what does that mean to you?
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Yeah, I mean I just can imagine, you know.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
I think about, obviously the visuals of it, and I've
seen the renderings of how close our fans are to
the field, which is an amazing thing both for our
fans and for our football team to get them closer
to our opponents. But my mind goes right to the
decibel level of what that creates. And I was blessed
to be around when they built a beautiful stadium in Minnesota,
(00:47):
US Bank Stadium. It is really loud, and I can
tell you I can remember being a young coach in
the Metrodome, which was loud, and they built this beautiful,
world class, first class facility, and I I was thinking
to myself, is this going to be as loud as
the Metrodome? And I think the first game of the
season that year was versus the Packers maybe Sunday at Football.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Not positive about that.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
But I remember the first third down of that game
and the level went to a decimal level I'd never heard.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
I mean, honestly, I never heard.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
In playing football, whether it's at or coaching football at
Seattle in New Orleans.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
It was ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
And talk about an advantage for the home team when
it's really hard for the other team to operate and
get in and out of the huddle and do checks
at the line of scrimmage on third down, it is
such a huge advantage. So my mind immediately goes while
beautiful and I'm sure there's great bathrooms and concessions and
all that, but that noise level is such a huge
advantage for that home team when you can have it
(01:46):
bouncing off the walls like it will be at our place.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Thanks people talk about already come into the dog Pound.
It's difficult to deal with. It is a tough environment
to play and because of the crowd, and now that
sounds not going to be going out, it's going to
be coming right back down.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
It's just going to be amplified.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
I mean, the dog Pound has for years been just
the core of who we are from a fandom and
their effect that they have on the game. Already, it's
a rabid group in that Dog Pound, And all you're
doing in our building is just now turning up the.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Dial, which is going to be a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Now when you're on offense, that's great for the defense, right,
all that noise when you're on offense, ideal conditions, This
is kind of how you came into the league, right
in beautiful conditions. You knew that, hey, whatever we put
in the game plan, mother nature is not going to
wreck that. Just kind of from a coaching standpoint, from
an execution standpoint, all of it. What's it like, nohen
going into every home game, we are going to play
(02:40):
under ideal conditions.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Yeah, you know, the skill players love that. I back
quarterbacks love that. And you look around the league and
you know playing indoors has its advantages and it certainly
does for that offense, for the quarterback, for the kicking game. Now,
there's always going to be elements that you're dealing with
of course, even within the game, it doesn't mean that
the ability to.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Be physical leaves you. You can be and you can think.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
About the teams that play indoors now and have played
indoors historically that still play physical brand of football. So
I don't think you don't lose that just because it's
an indoor stadium at all. But when it comes to
precision in the past game with skill players, I certainly
think you gained that.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
You and I had an opportunity to do an event
a couple of days ago where you brought out some
notes from Brett Farre's time in Minnesota when you were
new into the business. He probably had to think it
was great. He did deal with lambeau Field, and then
he comes in here he's like, oh, it's perfect.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Yeah, I'm telling you those guys, I think they take
that into account when they're deciding what teams to go
to as.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Well later career. It could be a great recruiting.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Tool, yep.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
I can think of some quarterbacks that get in later
in their year they're like, Okay, I'll go play indoors
for how many games? Yeah, So there's something to be
said for that. On the sake of the offense and
for our defense they get the bet. While you say, hey,
well the opposing offense has an advantage, Well, our defense
also gets the advantage of the decibels being turned up exponentially.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
And is there something to the speed that you know
some of these indoor games are played.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
It.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
I go back and think of you know, ab started
also with an indoor team in Indianapolis, and how they
would get those speed ends free Ny and mathis because
they could take advantage of that fast track.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
And there's a different way.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
To kind of maybe craft your team to really maximize
only the home field advantage of the sound, but of
the environment.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Without a doubt, I think speed becomes paramount when you're
talking about offense, defense or special teams. You're talking about
constructing a team that is built on speed. And again,
I hope that doesn't sound like you're getting away from physicality.
There's speed in physicality. We like pulling guards that can
really move and turn a corner. So I just think
it certainly changes the game a bit, but I think
(04:42):
it changes it for the better.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
So you kind of said anecdotal eight quarterbacks love to
come here. Have you ever met a quarterback that like
playing outdoors when they like playing indoors.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
They're lying if they say they do.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
I think those guys like the elements to be you know,
clean for them. Sick and pitch and catch doesn't change
the fact that we loved playing at Huntington bank Field
and we love going on the road. And there's gonna
be December games that you're playing in January games that
you're playing outdoors, but in front of our fans. To
play in that environment, with that amazing first class facility
(05:14):
for that environment for them, in an atmosphere that I
think will just be I just I can't imagine. The
dog Pound is fun already, what it looks like, what
it's going to be.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
I can't wait to see it.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
That wall is going to be incredible for the dog
Pound there. When you think about, you know, part of
this business is you'd yet to draft players, but then
there's free agency, there's recruiting of players when you have
a first class so that you saw first hand in Minnesota,
you went from not as good gaven had to be
outdoors for a little bit to then here you go
into the US Bank Stadium, which is considered by many
(05:47):
to be one of the best in the league, if
not the best until of course Huntington bank Field comes along.
How did that kind of help in terms of you
saw players who wanted to come play there.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Yeah. Absolutely, Listen, it's recruiting.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
We know that when we have this beautiful facility, we're
gonna take those free agents and bring them right to midfield.
I can picture it already, and you're going to put
their name and their jersey up on the screen. And
it's a pretty special thing to think about having those
guys in a world class facility, that they're going to
see our building with our fans right on top of them.
(06:22):
I mean, they're talk about support from the team. I
often tell the team, hey, the fans aren't coming down
out of the stands, so they may feel like they
are in this place, and certainly our opponents are going
to feel that. But to feel that sense of community,
to feel that bond with our fans that close to
the field, it'll be like nothing else.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
It's gonna be awesome. I really I'm excited about it now.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
When you kind of think about you and ab As
I talked about kind of both started there. From a
coaching perspective, when you know you can eliminate variables, and
that if you have the better game plan and you
have the better execution and the better team, you're going
to win more often not when you can eliminate some
of those extraneous things. Does that kind of shape how
you think about, you know, the Cleveland Browns going forward,
(07:02):
and really to me, it sounds like it'd be the
ideal environment from a coaching standpoint, because we if we
execute and we have the better plan, we're going to win.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Yeah. I think it's interesting.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
You do, obviously eliminate variables, but for both teams, it's
going to be that environment where it's going to be
who executes better. It's not going to be who plays
better in this environment because of this variable. It's gonna
be who plays better, who who blocks, tackles, throws better,
who runs better? And that's it gets really to the
(07:33):
core of it. You know, I think back to so
many of our great Super Bowls. They're played in ideal
conditions so that you see the very best versus the
very best.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
I imagine as a coach as you assemble this team
and you continue to build the Cleveland Browns looking forward
even to twenty twenty nine, that if we put the
best team out there, We're going to win more often
than not when we control that environment and we've got
the best fans making life hard. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
The part that, again from my chair, that fires me
up the most is just imagining our fans in that
building and how loud it's going to be.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I mean it's going to be. Again, you think about
the loud buildings right now.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
I think about Seattle, I think about New Orleans, I
think about Minnesota. That vaults you into that group with
our fan base. Man, it's it's gonna be unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
People may not understand what are the challenges you're calling plays?
What are the challenges when you can produce that kind
of an environment.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Yeah, you know, as a fan base, we want our
fans to affect the game, and our fans are I've
used the word before, a rabbit. I mean it's true,
they're there, they're in the ear of that defense a
second that they're on the field, and that that's a
big advantage because on offense, you're trying to communicate personnels,
you're trying to communicate formations, motions, those type of things.
(08:43):
When you get the third down and you're in the
shotgun and they're on the silent count and Miles Garrett's
on the other side and he can time up that
silent count. That's a huge advantage for the Cleveland Browns.
I think that's where our fans play such a huge
part in that advantage.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
This is going to be awesome.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
I cannot wait and coachpreciate the time and I can
tell you're fired up about it. We got a lot
of work to do in Huntington bank Field for now,
but the enclosed stadium that is going to be a blast.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Yeah. Thanks Jasy,
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