Feature or bug? Stefanski's coaching can be seen both ways

After the Browns clinched a playoff berth on Thursday Night Football, it gave the world a nice long look at some of the stories of the Browns: Joe Flacco's resurgence, Myles Garrett's Defensive Player of the Year candidacy, and the ((Yes, I know I've made this joke before.)) Ship of Theseus state of the entirety of the Browns roster. But one conversation I wasn't prepped for having was with one of my best friends, someone who was in my wedding, and his stance that Kevin Stefanski is not a good head coach.Now, as I like to say, we live in America where everyone is entitled to their own wrong opinion, but usually, that is reserved for thoughts like "Attack of the Clones was a pretty fun movie", or "Don't you have enough D&D dice?", ((Shiny math rocks go click clack.)) and I've even heard things like "Bread and butter pickles are underrated". But never did I think, in the year of our lord 2023, ((Happy New Year, y'all.)) in a season that (say it with me now) upwards of 26% of the Browns cap is on the IR, a 5th seed was locked up in Week 17, and they have started four different quarterbacks and the most recent has become a 38-year-old Uncle Rico walking meme, I'd have to argue for the validity of Stefanski being the Coach of the Year favorite.I'm on record as being one of the first ((I think. I don't know if anyone had said it sooner than me, and I'm sure the internet will correct me if I'm wrong.)) to put Stefanski as the CoY. There will always be haters and guys who have stuck to their guns in thinking that the analytical-minded Stefanski is a bad hire because he kicked down the "we've always done things this way" door, and I understand that. However, while I do not agree with his conclusions, the premises he made as to why Stefanski shouldn't win the award aren't completely out of whack, but his prior stance (Stefanski bad) colors his viewpoint in some areas of argument. There's a question that gets asked a lot online: "Is that a feature or bug?" meaning did an undesired outcome come from planning or mistakes?One of the big arguments he had against Stefanski was the team record in one-score games in 2023. Cleveland has gone 6-1 in one-score games, or games decided by fewer than seven points. The argument is, did we get lucky or are we good? If Jake Moody hits a 41-yard field goal with nine seconds on the clock, the Browns do not have one of their signature wins on the season. An officiating miscue in Indianapolis saved the day for Cleveland in the last seconds, and the Browns survived battles against Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Jacksonville. If you flipped the script on those wins, general manager Andrew Berry is having to handle discussions about Cleveland not having their top 10 first-round pick again.But is it a good thing or a bad thing to be good in one-score games? I'd argue good! Sure, you'd love for every game to be SEC-style cupcake blowout "style point" victories. But in the NFL, that rarely happens unless you're otherworldly amazing. Any Given Sunday is true, especially when you look at even this last week: Philadelphia lost a chance at the No. 1 seed in the NFC as they dropped a game to Arizona in the finals moments. Same with the Detroit Lions, who got a win stripped from them because the refs were confused as to which lineman was checking in as a receiver. Since 2000, 46.8% of NFL games have been decided by seven or fewer points. The percentage jumps to 50.57% if you move it to eight points. That is 2883 occurrences where games have been decided by seven or fewer points. When nearly half of your games are going to be decided by seven points or less, it's good to be good at that. It's not just luck. Stefanski teams, and this one more than ever, have been mentally prepared to win late in games.As someone who has been online too much and had too many arguments about the head coach of a team that is on the cusp of a 12-5 season, I see it this way: If you want to view Stefanski as being a bad coach because of going for it on fourth down or a seeming unwillingness to run the ball despite the lack of success in the run game, sure...just be mad cuz you wanna be mad. There's an episode of "Bluey" where Bingo gets upset about a miscommunication from her mom. She's got big feelings and they are hurt. So she puts the "Bad Mood" hat on her dad and he walks her around like a mech suit, wrecking the place because he is the "Bad Mood" she is in. Bluey tries doing everything possible to get Bingo out of her bad mood but Chili finally tells her, "Sometimes people just wanna be in a bad mood". If you're angry at Stefanski for doing things differently than you would like or have seen other head coaches do, then I can't help you get out of that. But take a step back and look at the results of what this head coach has done, the culture change that has happened within this organization, and truly think if the results are features or bugs.