FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — Kevin Stefanski entered the week facing one of the biggest jobs in professional football — stopping the NFL’s second-longest active streak of losing seasons and getting the Atlanta Falcons back to the playoffs.  The challenge comes two decades after he started his career with the Minnesota Vikings, saddled with the smallest jobs in football.

“You know the totem pole? I was underneath the totem pole,” the 44-year-old Stefanski said. “I was not visible on the totem pole.”

Stefanski stocked Gatorades in the locker room coolers — labels had to be facing out, he remembers. He delivered fine letters to players and often had to tap them on the shoulder to say, “Coach wants to see you; bring your playbook.”

“He never bitched or moaned,” Brad Childress, who was the Vikings head coach in those days, said.

Childress hired Stefanski as his assistant in 2006. Not assistant head coach, but assistant to the head coach. It’s a job title Childress stole from Andy Reid, and its responsibilities were “whatever the head coach tells you to do that day.”

“When I gave those guys a job,” Childress said, “I told them the same thing Andy told me: ‘If I give you a job, just know it’s important, and do it better than I’d do it. To me, Kevin exemplified that.”

When Stefanski survived the worst of the jobs, he was handed more responsibility — like team weatherman. It was his job to tell Childress, depending on the forecast, if the Vikings should practice indoors or out. Stefanski had three Minneapolis meteorologists on speed dial.

“I would ask them, ‘We’ve got practice at 11:30. What are you thinking?’” Stefanski said.

He still remembers drawing Steve Hutchinson’s wrath for moving practice inside on what turned out to be “a gorgeous day.”

“I have PTSD from those types of decisions,” he said. “Luckily, we have better apps now.”

Stefanski made enough correct calls, though, that he was soon plotting Minnesota’s strategy for instant replay challenges and holding the red flag for Childress on the sideline.

Leslie Frazier, the Vikings’ assistant head coach and defensive coordinator, marveled at all the scenarios Stefanski presented during his challenge flag presentation to the coaches.

“It didn’t matter what job you gave him, he was going to work as hard as he could to make it a ‘Mona Lisa,’” Frazier said. “When you see guys like that, you like to believe they have a great future.”

Through much of his time in that job with the Vikings, Stefanski lived in an apartment that included an air mattress, a television sitting on a cardboard box and only cereal and milk on the menu. But he was rarely there anyway. He was out living his dream.

“There are so many things I love about our sport,” he said. “I think it’s the best game there is, and I remind our players, it is a kid’s game, and they all fell in love with it at a very young age.”

Stefanski did as an 8-year-old in Philadelphia, playing for the Conestoga Generals and cheering for Buddy Ryan’s Eagles.

“I can vividly remember taking a plain white T-shirt and having my mom write No. 92 in green on the back,” Stefanski said. “Reggie White was my favorite player. I loved him.”

Football snuck up on Stefanski. He grew up tailing his father around high school and college basketball gyms in Pennsylvania. Ed Stefanski was a standout at Penn in basketball and a 10th-round draft pick by the 76ers who went on to be the general manager of the 76ers and the New Jersey Nets.

“I feel like I was raised in the high school gyms and at the Palestra,” Stefanski said of the historic Penn Quakers arena.

He can still close his eyes and see Lionel “L-Train” Simmons dominating practices at La Salle University on the way to becoming the seventh pick in the 1990 NBA Draft.

“We all played all the sports, and for whatever reason, I just fell in love with football early,” Stefanski said.

His own playing career exhausted its potential after four years at Penn, where he was honorable mention All-Ivy League as a sophomore.

“What is it? Those who can’t do it, teach … or coach,” Stefanski said.

Kevin Stefanski will have plenty of decisions to make ahead of Week 1, including picking a starting quarterback. (Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)

After one year in football operations at his alma mater, Stefanski got his opportunity with Childress.

“He was just a tireless worker and a very smart guy,” Childress said. “He saw things over the horizon that were about to come. After a couple years, he wanted to get into coaching.”

For the next 11 years, Stefanski climbed the ladder in Minnesota, from assistant quarterbacks coach in 2009 to offensive coordinator in 2019. He worked under Bill Musgrave, Norv Turner and Pat Shurmur and developed what has become a lifelong relationship with the Kubiaks, father Gary and sons Klint, Klay and Klein. Stefanski has joked that he sometimes considers himself the fourth Kubiak brother.

“Got the K thing,” he said.

“My boys have all become friends with Kevin one way or another, but Klint and Kevin kind of grew up together,” Gary Kubiak said. “I think the world of him. I know he’s a hell of a person, and he’s a hell of a coach.”

Gary and Klint Kubiak came to Minnesota in 2019 after Gary left Denver. The elder Kubiak became the assistant head coach and offensive advisor, while his oldest son, who this year was named the Raiders’ head coach, became Stefanski’s quarterbacks coach.

“We sat in an office about as big as this table, and Kevin showed me the ropes,” Klint said while sitting at a small banquet table at the league’s annual meeting this year. “I have always been really close to Kevin and appreciate him for really helping develop me as a head coach.”

Stefanski used that year to cram the Kubiak tenets into an offensive philosophy that started in Bill Walsh’s West Coast style and tacked on pieces throughout the years.

“You get stereotyped — this is what he does, or this is what he runs — but your system has to be such that you can branch off in a lot of directions,” Gary said. “You can’t have a playbook and say, ‘That’s what we do,’ and run it for 18 weeks. You’re going to get your (butt) kicked in the NFL. What you have to do is have a system in place that allows you to branch off in a lot of directions.”

The Vikings finished fifth in the NFL in offensive EPA per play (0.06) and eighth in scoring (25.4 ppg) in 2019, good enough to get Stefanski the head coaching job in Cleveland. In six years with the Browns, his core offensive beliefs surfaced. Cleveland was 11th in the NFL in run rate (40.1 percent) and sixth in play-action dropback rate on traditional run downs (50.8 percent), according to TruMedia, during his time there.

“He believes in the physicality of offense and being able to run the ball, the play-action pass game and quarterback movement, keepers and boots,” Patriots coach Mike Vrabel, who spent the 2024 season as a coaching consultant in Cleveland, said. “Those all marry well with each other, and he brings a physicality to his play calling.”

The results of Stefanski’s time in Cleveland were mixed. He was named the league’s Coach of the Year twice but missed the playoffs four times and churned through 13 starting quarterbacks while averaging 20.3 points per game, which ranked 29th in the league over those six years.

“The year I spent with them was a tough year, and sometimes you run into a tough year in the NFL,” Vrabel said. “But he handled it with class and never failed to lead their staff and players. That’s what I was impressed by. Kevin is a great leader, a great coach.”

The Browns fired Stefanski in January with a 45-56 career record.

“Any team you’re on, I don’t care what sport you’re playing, you want to win, and you want ultimately to be that last team standing, and we didn’t accomplish that,” he said. “That’s my regret, and it’s something that all of us take with us, and I certainly take with me in my desire to do better.”

However, Stefanski brings no bitterness with him to Atlanta, he has insisted.

“I have nothing but love for that organization,” he said of the Browns.

Those who know him, though, say he does bring a chip on his shoulder.

“I know Kevin is very driven after what he’s been through in Cleveland,” Gary Kubiak said. “Don’t let Kevin’s smile fool you, boy. He is competitive as hell, and he’s extremely driven. It’s going to be fun to watch.”

Turner, who spent three years as the Vikings’ offensive coordinator, believes Stefanski’s Browns experience will benefit the Falcons.

“I don’t think anyone knows what he could control and what he couldn’t control in Cleveland, but you learn from all of it,” Turner said. “The thing he has going for him in my mind is he has been through a tough situation.”

Stefanski’s only real interests outside of football and a family that includes Michelle, his wife of 19 years, two sons and a daughter are golfing and reading, and “composed” is probably the most accurate way to describe his public approach to the job.

“Kevin is steady, which I love about him,” Falcons first-year general manager Ian Cunningham said. “He doesn’t ride the waves of emotion, but you can see there is passion in there. Don’t mistake that.”

In the six months since his hiring, Stefanski has hammered away at the Falcons about the importance of details and accountability, wide receiver Drake London said.

“We are never complacent,” London said. “That’s the big motto right now … just keep pushing forward and striving for greatness. That’s what he is implementing in probably the chillest way ever, but at the same time, he’s all about business.”

Players respond to Stefanski because of his quiet confidence, Gary Kubiak said.

“He’s just such a good person,” Kubiak said. “If you work for him, you want to die for him. If you play for him, you want to play hard for him.”

Stefanski will need all of his self-belief to reverse the Falcons’ fortunes. Atlanta hasn’t made the playoffs since the 2017 season and is 25th in the NFL in wins (55) since then.

“He’s going to do a great job, and when you go back and look at his first press conference and then his press conference when they win the NFC South, you’re going to say, ‘Man, it hasn’t gone to his head. He’s still that same humble, intelligent, smart guy,’” Frazier predicted. “That’s rare to find in a guy who has as much talent as he has.”