JANUARY 22: The Falcons announced on Thursday that Rees’ hire is official. He and Stefanski will now move forward in their new setting and fill out the remainder of the offensive staff.
JANUARY 21: Tommy Rees is set to follow Kevin Stefanski from Cleveland to Atlanta. The Falcons are expected to hire Rees as their offensive coordinator, Ian Rapoport of NFL Network reports. The deal isn’t official, but Rees has accepted the job, according to Albert Breer of SI.com.
This was the likely outcome when the Falcons hired Stefanski, previously the Browns’ head coach, on Saturday. Mary Kay Cabot of cleveland.com reported then that the 33-year-old Rees was a candidate to rejoin Stefanski in Atlanta. The pair developed a strong working relationship in their two years together in Cleveland.
Rees interviewed to take over for Stefanski, but this move slams the door on that possibility. It’s obvious Cleveland will select a different head coaching candidate instead.
Formerly a Notre Dame quarterback, Rees got his start as a coach as a graduate assistant with Northwestern in 2015. He later returned to his alma mater to serve as Notre Dame’s offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach from 2020-22.
Rees worked in the same roles at Alabama in 2023, the last season of head coach Nick Saban‘s remarkable career. He oversaw a breakout campaign from then-sophomore quarterback Jalen Milroe, who’s now a backup with the Seahawks, and then left for the NFL.
After his only year on Saban’s staff, Rees joined the Browns as their tight ends coach and pass game specialist in 2024. Stefanski promoted Rees to offensive coordinator after firing Ken Dorsey last January, but the head coach opened 2025 as the Browns’ play caller. That changed when Stefanski handed the keys to Rees before a Week 10 loss to the Jets. It’s not known yet if they’ll continue with that arrangement in Atlanta.
The Browns’ offense ended the year a horrid 30th in yards and 31st in scoring, but the unit wasn’t exactly teeming with weapons. Although neither Stefanski nor Rees found an answer at quarterback among Joe Flacco, Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders, that wasn’t a major surprise.
The 41-year-old Flacco was brought in as a stopgap, and the Browns wound up trading him to the Bengals in early October. Gabriel, a third-round rookie, struggled mightily before suffering a concussion in Rees’ second game as a play caller. Sanders, a fifth-round rookie, held the reins for the rest of the year. While Sanders performed better than Gabriel, he’s hardly a slam dunk to establish himself as the Browns’ solution under center.
The Falcons have a far more talented offense than the Browns (running back Bijan Robinson and wide receiver Drake London are among the game’s best at their positions), but QB is also a concern in Atlanta. After the 2023 season, former general manager Terry Fontenot made a mammoth free agent investment in Kirk Cousins and then surprisingly used the eighth overall pick on Michael Penix Jr. a little over a month later. Those two remain in place for now, but they’ve offered lackluster production for the Falcons.
Despite inking a four-year, $180MM contract, Cousins didn’t play well enough in his first Falcons season to keep the starting job. Then-head coach Raheem Morris benched Cousins for Penix in Week 16. Penix stuck as the Falcons’ starter this season until he went down with a partially torn ACL in Week 11. That continued a long history of serious injuries dating back to a college career divided between Indiana and Washington.
In the wake of his latest injury, it’s unknown if Penix will be healthy enough to start Week 1 in 2026. That’s assuming the Falcons’ new leaders – president of football Matt Ryan, a to-be-determined general manager and Stefanski – decide to go forward with Penix as the No. 1 option. They’re likely to release Cousins either way.
Along with questions at the game’s most important position, the Falcons’ offense is facing uncertainty at tight end. Kyle Pitts is due to become a free agent on the heels of a second-team All-Pro campaign. After successfully working with tight ends David Njoku and Harold Fannin in Cleveland, Stefanski and Rees may prefer to keep Pitts in the fold.
With Robinson, London and Pitts posting terrific numbers, the Falcons finished a slightly above-average 14th in total offense under coordinator Zac Robinson in 2025. Only eight teams amassed fewer points, though, and Stefanski and Rees will aim for better results next season.
Who is calling plays?
Sorry @ATLSentinel
Dillon Gabriel for a third round pick. Make it happen.
It’s so much fun being a Browns fan!!!!!
I do not care who the coaches are, just win!!!!
So the Falcons now have a rejuvenated Fbomb cursing Stephanski and the OC from a dead last place offense in 2025. Do the Falcons know that Stephanski is one of the worst game management coaches in the league. Then, like a broken record, kept saying “we gotta do better”… He wasn’t the whole problem in Cleveland but he sure added a lot of questionable coaching to the games.
Actually makes me wonder what took place behind the closed doors with Berry and Haslam? Just pi**es me off that his first day on the job in Atlanta he drops a “Let’s f-n Go” bomb and we were stuck with sour puss face every week saying We gotta do better!!!
How about you spell his last name correctly first before you break into a wild tangent next time?
There is a couple of really undesirable open head coaching gigs open this offseason. The Browns have to be one of those. You have a second year QB who may have played just well enough to have earned another look with a questionable attitude and you have one of the biggest bust contracts in Watson who’s contract will hamper the Browns for this season and beyond with all the dead money with void years. The Browns should have given stefanski at least a couple more years to at least get past this period and possibly finding a new coach with a brighter outlook and more desirability. The Raiders will have their chance to get their QB but they’ve had way too many one or two and done coaches you can’t exactly love being on the hot seat year one. I know the Dolphins got Hafley but don’t love that spot either. You have a 50m a year QB that appears to be on his way to a back up gig and I don’t see Tyreek Hill ever being the force he was again. I’d want the Steelers job long term. They don’t have their QB of the future and won’t have a high pick but they have an owner who values stability and will almost surely give a new coach time to build a roster and a culture.
Haslam gave Stefanski 6 years and Watson was a top 5 QB ..All Pro when they traded for him….just saying. .
Deshaun Watson faced a large amount of sexual allegations and did not play at all the year before he was traded to the Browns, just reminding you
Watson hadn’t played for a full season when they got him.
Don’t let facts get in the way of biases for these people. They decided they liked Little Kev and hated the QBs he coached, which should include Baker too since he ran him off too, yet every other post about him is how he never had a decent QB. We all know he wasn’t responsible for anything in Cleveland, and it was all everyone else fault.
2026 is final year of the Watson deal thankfully and the money will come off the books. Dead cap hit will change after June 1st I believe, but as the team said he will be on the roster next season, it will thankfully be paid out and done. With the amount of dysfunction in the organization, giving Stefanski a few more years probably wouldn’t amount to much. He’s a decent head coach but not a coach that can get a team to the Super Bowl his in-game decisions left a lot of head scratching over the years. That said, the front office mess (Berry and DePodesta) and Haslam’s continued incompetence didn’t help Stefanski either.
There aren’t any QBs in this draft anyway, so they might as well see if he can play next year. His last HC wasted three quarters of the year playing a 50 year old and a Munchkin who isn’t an NFL QB because he’s an idiot.
Stefanski to Cousins — “We wont know how much Penix can help us, till he comes back fully healthy. I will run the damn ball with everybody – you just take deeper drops and get rid of it”
Give Bijan ball 30 times a game and actually scheme for our best weapons like London and Pitts if he comes back
Can Mooney make a difference again? Is he still under contract?
Yeah one last year with him.