CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – This is supposed to be a quiet time for players around the NFL.
Not for Odell Beckham Jr.
The New Year is just three weeks old and Beckham has been in the headlines, a lot.
Thursday, new head coach Kevin Stefanski plans to sit down with the receiver.
“I’m looking forward to sitting down with Odell face to face,” Stefanski said Wednesday night at the 20th annual Greater Cleveland Sports Awards. “I haven’t had a chance to do that yet, I’ll get a chance to do that [Thursday]. And at that point, that’s when I can start laying out my expectations for Odell and for all of our players.”
Stefanski will have plenty to talk with Beckham about starting with his conduct in New Orleans at the College Football Playoff national championship game.
After LSU beat Clemson to win the national championship, the celebration became about Beckham.
Beckham went into the stands and attempted to direct LSU’s band, returned to the field and started to hand out wads of cash to victorious players then was caught on video in the locker room slapping the backside of a Superdome security officer. New Orleans police obtained an arrest warrant, which was rescinded after the officer declined to press charges.
During his first season in Cleveland Beckham was flagged by the league for wearing expensive watches, pulled from a game because of a visor and had to change his cleats at halftime of another game.
“We’ll talk about that and lay out the expectations for our guys and conduct and how we want them to conduct themselves,” Stefanski said.
It seems that wherever Beckham goes and whatever he does, drama follows, with much of it his own doing.
“We’re going to talk about what we expect moving forward,” Stefanski said. “I don’t have a relationship yet with Odell, so we need to sit down and get to know each other. He needs to get to know me, I need to get to know him, and then we’re going to move forward with our eyes ahead to 2020.”
Earlier this week Beckham underwent surgery to repair a core muscle injury he played through last season.
“He’s certainly going to get to work with our trainers and I’m confident that he’ll put in the work and put in the rehab necessary to get him back to full speed,” Stefanski said.
Despite the injury, Beckham did not miss a game and he caught 74 passes for 1,035 yards and four touchdowns.
Stefanski was relieved that Beckham’s best friend Jarvis Landry did not need surgery, which would’ve sidelined him for up to eight months.
“Anytime you can be conservative with an injury and get him back without going under the knife is always good because there’s no surgery that’s not invasive, so [I’m] excited for him,” Stefanski said.
Landry is participating in Pro Bowl festivities this week and he plans to play in the game Sunday in Orlando.
Waiting game – 49ers defensive backs coach/passing game coordinator Joe Woods can’t be hired as defensive coordinator until after the Super Bowl Feb. 2 and league rules prevent Stefanski from saying much about Woods.
“I have no problem waiting,” Stefanski said.
“Another one of those great coaches I’ve been around among many guys. But he’s in the Super Bowl, which is the ultimate that we’re all trying to get to, so I’ll wait to talk about any of those scenarios until after that Super Bowl.”
Stick around – Stefanski didn’t want to talk much about his plans to fill out the coaching staff but he did confirm three members of last year’ staff will be retained.
Special teams coordinator Mike Priefer, assistant special teams coach Doug Colman and run game coordinator/running backs coach Stump Mitchell are being kept by Stefanski.
[They're] some really good coaches that are going to be important to our success moving forward," Stefanski said.
Stefanski worked with Priefer, who helped turn around Cleveland’s unit this past season with rookie punter Jamie Gillan and kicker Austin Seibert, in Minnesota from 2011-2018.
Mitchell helped running back Nick Chubb reach Pro Bowl status with 1,494 yards, ranked third in the NFL. Cleveland ranked 12th overall in rushing with a 118.8 yard per game average.
“I kind of know what he's all about,” Stefanski said. “I like the way he teaches, I love the toughness he brings to our staff room, to our field. I think the proof is in the pudding. He had two really good players playing this year, so I think he's an excellent coach and [I'm] excited he’s part of our future."
Coordination is key – Stefanski’s plan to hire an offensive coordinator remains a work in progress.
“We are definitely working through all that,” Stefanski said. “There's a ton of good candidates and we're going to make sure we take our time. I know there's a rush to it, but we have to get somebody before September, but we've got to make sure we get the right people, so we're going to take our time.”
Stefanski declined to say if he will hire a true offensive coordinator or split the job in two with a run and pass game coordinator instead.
“I'm committed to adding the right people to our building,” Stefanski said. “That remains to be seen but we're definitely looking at all avenues as we try to put a really good staff together.”
Lean on me – The addition of Bill Callahan as offensive line coach serves multiple purposes.
Aside from working with the offensive line, Callahan, a former head coach of the Raiders and interim coach for Washington, will also help guide Stefanski through some of the issues first-year NFL head coaches deal with.
“That’s the idea behind bringing coach Callahan here,” Stefanski said. “He’s been there, he’s done that – at the collegiate level, at the pro level, so I’m going to lean heavily on him among other guys on the staff, but coach Callahan brings a very unique perspective and I just like to be surrounded by smart people.”
Film study – Stefanski is still in the ‘getting to know you’ stage of his tenure in Cleveland.
In between interviews for assistant coaches and general manager, Stefanski has been watching the tape of what went wrong last season.
“Early mornings, I can watch a lot of tape,” Stefanski said. “I’m not counting [the hours] but I do know this, there’s a certain amount of work that has to go into it. There’s no way to download a season’s worth of film into my brain so I’ve been spending a lot of time with it and I think as we add coaches to the staff then they can sit down and watch the tape. Then we can sit down and start to identify the things we may need moving forward.”
