It doesn’t make sense that Kevin Stefanski won’t call plays for Falcons

The Falcons hired Kevin Stefanski, an NFL offensive guru, to be their head coach. Stefanski will let Tommy Rees, an NFL neophyte, call the plays.

I don’t understand the decision.

Maybe Rees, 33, turns out to be the next hotshot young coach to become a successful NFL play-caller. I just think it’s too risky for Stefanski to count on that when he’s the experienced and successful NFL play-caller on staff.

Stefanski called the plays for high-scoring Vikings teams. He called the plays for Browns teams that managed to be average without much talent. Offensive acumen is the big selling point for Stefanski, because it’s certainly not his 45-56 record as Browns coach, including 8-26 over the past two seasons.

But now Stefanski’s offense will be run by Rees, whose only experience as an NFL play-caller is for nine games with the Browns in 2025. Rees produced unremarkable results as OC at Notre Dame (three seasons) and Alabama (one).

Stefanski convinced Falcons president of football Matt Ryan that Rees is the right person to run the offense. Ryan said he was sold on the idea after looking into Rees’ background.

“These are big hires and important hires, and you want to make sure everybody is seeing it the same way,” Ryan said Tuesday. “So, we did a lot of reference work on Tommy and feel, much like Kevin, very strongly about him as a young coach and what he can do. He’s inexperienced when it comes to play-calling in the NFL, but he’s very experienced with calling plays.”

The Falcons are emphasizing that Rees and Stefanski “worked collaboratively” to create the offensive system in Cleveland. It’s true that there’s a lot more to generating high-scoring offenses than calling the right plays. Most of the work is done before kickoff.

But there’s an art to calling plays on the fly and adjusting as needed. Rees has very little experience doing it in the NFL, where it’s much harder to do than at top-tier college programs. NFL play-callers can’t simply overwhelm opponents with better players all over the field.

Rees succeeds Zac Robinson as Falcons offensive coordinator. Robinson also didn’t have experience as an NFL play-caller when Raheem Morris gave him the job. But at least Robinson came from Sean McVay’s fruitful NFL coaching tree.

Stefanski turned over play-calling duties to Rees for Cleveland’s final nine games of last season.

“That is a setup that I am very, very comfortable with,” Stefanski said. “I think he’s an outstanding football coach. He’s young, but I don’t know if you always measure experience just in years. I think he’s had unbelievable experiences in his young career.

“He’s somebody that I trust. We see the game similarly, but we also push each other because we’re different.”

They have much different backgrounds as NFL coaches.

Stefanski had already been on Minnesota’s staff for 13 years when head coach Mike Zimmer gave him play-calling responsibilities for the final three games of the 2018 season. Stefanski remained Vikings play-caller in 2019 and they improved from 19th to eighth in scoring (adding instant star wide receiver Justin Jefferson certainly helped).

With the Browns, Stefanski called the plays for teams with average rankings in scoring offense with (pre-resurgence) Baker Mayfield, diminished Deshaun Watson and journeymen at quarterback. Cleveland’s offense cratered in 2024 and 2025 as issues at quarterback and an overall talent deficit took their toll.

After Cleveland’s bye week last season, Stefanski turned over play-calling duties to Rees and replaced veteran quarterback Joe Flacco with rookie Dillon Gabriel. The Browns had a 2-6 record while scoring 15.8 points per game. With Rees calling the plays, the Browns averaged 14.6 points (not counting scores by the defense) and lost six of nine games.

Before his Browns stint Rees, a former Notre Dame quarterback, coached for his alma mater starting in 2017. Head coach Brian Kelly promoted Rees to play-caller in 2020. During Rees’ three seasons as coordinator, the Fighting Irish ranked 30th, 39th and 19th nationally in scoring vs. teams ranked in The Associated Press poll (10 games).

Rees called the plays for Alabama during Nick Saban’s final season in 2023. The Crimson Tide ranked 15th nationally in scoring vs. ranked opponents (six games). Alabama lost 27-20 in overtime to Michigan in the College Football Playoff semifinal while gaining just 265 yards in regulation and failing to score in OT.

Now, Rees will guide the most talented offensive roster of his coaching career.

Before the 2025 season, Pro Football Focus ranked the rosters for every NFL team. Listed as the weakness for the Browns: “The entire offense.” PFF noted that the Browns had no clear answer at quarterback, “arguably the worst receiving corps in the league” and a bad offensive line.

The 2026 Falcons look unsettled at quarterback for now. Penix is recovering from ACL surgery and Kirk Cousins looks to be on the way out (Stefanski, Cousins’ OC in Minnesota, didn’t have anything to say about that decision).