Usually a head coach is indirectly responsible for what takes place on the field. It’s his job to design a game plan and have the team prepared and ready to compete.

It’s the players who have to execute, and in that way, they are more directly responsible for their on-field play. But interacting with officials and clock management are the charge of he who is overseeing from the sideline. And those aspects of coaching, among others, have a direct and distinct effect on games and their outcomes.

Knowing that head coach Kevin Stefanski gifted the Bengals three points they had no business with, by a gross mismanagement of the final 40-plus seconds of the first half, could there be any excuse or explanation for this seemingly misguided failure in his command?

Was he afraid an attempt at a punt block would result in an offside or a roughing penalty? Did he have no confidence in his return team to simply field a punt without muffing it? Could he have been worried that after the change of possession second-year QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson wouldn’t be able to execute the center-quarterback exchange without fumbling?

No. It’s purely an inexcusable lapse in foresight and anticipation. And if any one of those preposterous extenuations above were to be put forth in defense of his pronounced and thorough mishandling of the entire scenario, his judgment should then be called into question even moreso.

But with 30 minutes of game time remaining, Stefanski would have the opportunity to get the rig back on the road. How the Browns performed the rest of the way would have to have a profound impact on his job security if his seat were indeed of the hot variety coming down the home stretch of what is so far a three-win season, wouldn’t it?

We’ll get to that immediately, in Part 8.

—@PoisonPill4