A day after flying to Cleveland for a second interview with the Browns, Kevin Stefanski returned to Minnesota to accept the job he missed out on a year ago.
Stefanski will be the Vikings' permanent offensive coordinator in 2019, the team announced, after the Browns chose offensive coordinator Freddie Kitchens as their next head coach. The Vikings, sources said, had offered the permanent job to Stefanski last week, before his existing contract expired on Tuesday, and were waiting to see how things played out between him and the Browns before moving forward.
Stefanski, 36, was the interim offensive coordinator for the final three games of the season, after the team fired John DeFilippo. He has been with the Vikings since 2006, and is the longest-tenured assistant coach on the team's staff. He first interviewed for the Vikings' coordinator position last year, and was thought to be the favorite until the team hired DeFilippo.
After doing so, the Vikings blocked Stefanski from joining Pat Shurmur in New York and becoming the Giants' offensive coordinator, keeping him as their quarterbacks coach before promoting him in the wake of DeFilippo's dismissal Dec. 11.
The Vikings ran for 220 yards in a 41-17 victory over the Dolphins in Stefanski's first game as a play-caller, but got off to slow starts in a 27-9 Dec. 23 win in Detroit and a 24-10 Dec. 30 loss to the Bears that cost them a playoff spot. In his postseason news conference Jan. 3, Zimmer praised the job Stefanski had done in DeFilippo's stead.
"I thought he did a good job for the three weeks that we were in a tough situation that we had to do," Zimmer said. "It's fair to the organization, to myself, to the fans, that we look at everybody."
Vikings players also spoke highly of Stefanski and the work he'd done to simplify the team's offense in the final weeks of the season. Now that Stefanski has the job permanently, it bears watching how he shapes the offense, in light of the mandate from coach Mike Zimmer to run the ball more frequently that ultimately exposed the philosophical rift between him and DeFilippo.
He will also be tasked with overseeing the Vikings' ongoing efforts to rework an offensive line that made things difficult for them on offense once again in 2018. And Stefanski will return for a second year with quarterback Kirk Cousins, whose relationship with the former quarterbacks coach was thought to be one of the reasons Stefanski could stay on in 2019.
"I enjoyed working with Kevin," Cousins said after the Bears game on Dec. 30. "He's a great person, a great football mind. He's been here a long time. But he's going to have options, too. So hopefully he wants to work with me. It goes both ways. But he's been a joy to work with."
Stefanski, who first came to Minnesota as a student of Brad Childress, impressed the Browns enough in his first interview last week to return as one of their finalists for the head coaching job early this week. With Stefanski moving up to the offensive coordinator job, assistant QB coach Drew Petzing could be promoted to the permanent role, though tight ends coach Todd Downing also worked closely with Cousins in the final weeks of the season, after Stefanski took over play-calling duties.
The status of special teams coordinator Mike Priefer, whose contract expired Tuesday, remained unknown.
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