Falcons Add Another Former Brown to Kevin Stefanski's Staff

FLOWERY BRANCH – The Atlanta Falcons have officially announced that they have hired former offensive assistant from the Cleveland Browns, Mike Bearden, as a Coaching Fellow/Offensive Assistant.

Bearden spent the 2025 season with Stefanski’s staff in Cleveland as part of the ‘Bill Willis Coaching Fellowship’, working with the team’s offense under the new Falcons offensive coordinator Tommy Rees.

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“Michael has been outstanding,” the ex-Browns head coach, Stefanski, told Kelsey Russo of the Cleveland Browns in 2025. “Just in the few meetings that we've already had together, I've seen how intelligent he is and how hard he's working. I know that job well when it comes to quality control. There's a lot of work that goes into it, and none of it is glorious, and he's doing a really nice job. And you can tell this kid knows how to work.”

He also spent training camp with the Chicago Bears in 2024 as part of the NFL’s Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship.

Before his time with the Browns last year, Bearden spent two seasons (2024-25) at Notre Dame as the assistant wide receivers coach. There, he helped guide the Fight Irish to the 2025 College Football Playoff National Championship game. Notre Dame’s offense ranked seventh in FBS with an average of 37.6 points per game in 2024.

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Still in the college ranks, he served in multiple roles at UCLA before heading to South Bend, spending the 2022 season as an analyst for the Bruins before being promoted to assistant special teams coordinator and specialist coach in 2023. Beardan reportedly began as a volunteer before he was promoted to graduate assistant.

Bearden played high school football in Los Angeles, but took a different path when he got to college. As an undergraduate at Northwestern University, Beardan spent four years working with the Wildcat football program, first as an assistant in the video department before serving as a student assistant coach for his final three seasons.

Now, the assistant will follow his former head coach to Atlanta.

Stefanski's tenure in Cleveland ended with a 45-56 record, but it was marked by two of the franchise’s three playoff appearances in the last 30 years (the first since 2002) and their only postseason victory during that span. Those two seasons also represented two of their three seasons with 10 or more wins and the head coach's two NFL Coach of the Year awards.

See here for the other hires the head coach has made thus far.