Cleveland Browns must fire Freddie Kitchens immediately

After an unacceptable 2-6 start to the season for the Cleveland Browns, changes must be made, starting with the firing of head coach Freddie Kitchens.

Coming into the 2019 NFL season, the expectations for the Cleveland Browns were through the roof. With an extremely talented roster put together by general manager John Dorsey, a blossoming young quarterback and a new head coach that had the offense clicking on all cylinders in the second half of last season, the sky was the limit.

Playoffs? Piece of cake. Winning the division? Not a problem. Super Bowl? Not out of the question. For a team that had a combined record of 1-31 in 2016 and 2017, 2019 was supposed to be the season that Cleveland Browns fans have been waiting so long for since the team returned to town in 1999.

What have we gotten? A 2-6 record over the first half of the season. Most recently, a terrible loss against a 2-5 team with a three-year, zero NFL experience quarterback at the helm. After Sunday’s loss to the Denver Broncos, the Cleveland Browns have to make a change, and they have to make it now. That change needs to start with the firing of head coach Freddie Kitchens.

Freddie Kitchens joined the Cleveland Browns in January of 2018, joining Hue Jackson’s staff as the running backs coach and associate head coach prior to last season. After early struggles (and the 2017 and 18 seasons mentioned earlier), the Browns finally let Jackson go, along with offensive coordinator Todd Haley. They then promoted defensive coordinator Gregg Williams to interim head coach and Kitchens to offensive coordinator.

Under the new coaching alignment, the Cleveland Browns and their offense were on fire. The team finished 5-3 while quarterback Baker Mayfield began to look like a top tier NFL quarterback, ultimately finishing as the runner-up for NFL Rookie of the Year. Baker broke the rookie passing touchdown record without playing in the first two and a half games.

After such an impressive offensive performance to finish out the 2018 season, the Cleveland Browns hired Freddie Kitchens as the full-time head coach of the team for 2019. Kitchens was given the job over experienced head coaches such as Mike McCarthy, Gregg Williams and Mike Munchak, as well as other young prospective coaching options such as Kevin Stefanski, Brian Flores, Matt Eberflus and Dan Campbell.

Even though Freddie Kitchens had no prior experience as a head coach and only had half a season as a play-caller, the Cleveland Browns took a chance on him, clearly attributing the 2018 offensive success largely to him.

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Adding an elite playmaker in Odell Beckham, Baker Mayfield having another year to develop as a quarterback, improving the defensive line and secondary to give the offense better field position… things could only get even better, right? Boy has that thought been proven wrong.

In 2019 it is clear that the Cleveland Browns offense just is not clicking like it did to end the 2018 season. They have shown spurts here and there of creative plays and offensive prowess, but overall production has been lacking, and offensive consistency has been non-existent.

Play-calling has been questionable all season long, some personnel decisions have been head-scratching as well, and the offense seems to fail on crucial plays time and time again, game in and game out. Mayfield has been pressured into making poor decisions, receivers have been dropping passes, and the Cleveland Browns offense has been the most penalized unit in the NFL.

Sure, Kitchens can’t block, make throws or make catches. But as he has said repeatedly, it’s his job to put the players in the best position to succeed. And as he has admitted after multiple games, he has failed repeatedly.

Penalties and turnovers have been the two Achilles heels for the Cleveland Browns this season. Those sorts of issues directly stem from a lack of discipline, which falls back on the head coach. Without any prior experience as a head coach, it is becoming more and more clear that Freddie Kitchens can not effectively lead and control the Cleveland Browns locker room.

Maybe Kitchens has put too much on his plate. In addition to serving as the head coach, he is also still calling offensive plays. Play-calling that has not been near the level of last season. Plays have been much less creative this season. With dynamic playmakers like Beckham, Jarvis Landry and Nick Chubb it should not be hard to scheme the ball into their hands to let them make plays.

Many play calls on crucial downs have been head-scratching. Routes running short of the first down marker, passing plays on short goal-to-go downs, and runs in long-distance scenarios. Consistent, creative play-calling seemed to be the strength of Freddie Kitchens a season ago and appears to be his weakness to this point in 2019.

As the head coach, he has been questioned repeatedly about both his personnel decisions and his in-game management and decision-making. As the head coach who presumably chooses who to send out on the field any given Sunday, Kitchens has made some odd choices at times. Rashard Higgins has seen the field on offense only a handful of times since his week one injury, despite stating that he has been fully healthy for weeks now.

In-game, Kitchens has opted for Dontrell Hilliard in the backfield at times when most people thought top-tier running back Nick Chubb should have been on the field. Freddie Kitchens seems to be making very questionable decisions, to say the least, when it comes to who is on the field when it counts for the Cleveland Browns in 2019.

Kitchens has also mismanaged many games and situations when it comes to clock management and in-game decision making at important points in games. He has challenged calls that he had no business challenging, called timeouts when he had no real reason too, and his playcalling has let scoring opportunities slip away at multiple points already this season.

To me, it’s clear that Freddie Kitchens was not the right hire as head coach of the Cleveland Browns. Will John Dorsey admit that just halfway through his first season as the head coach? Probably not. Should he if he wants the team to win a chunk of games and at least threaten the playoffs this year? Absolutely.

The Browns have a favorable schedule from here on out and have the talent on the roster to make a run. If that talent starts being utilized properly, you never know what could happen in a still wide-open AFC playoff picture. Even if they turn things around right now, they likely will fail to make the postseason.

However, a similar turnaround to last year would be a welcomed sight for Cleveland Browns fans, players and remaining members of the coaching staff and front office going forward.

There are a couple of options on the current coaching staff that have experience as a head coach. Defensive coordinator Steve Wilks has NFL head coaching experience as recent as last season with the Arizona Cardinals. Offensive coordinator Todd Monken was the head coach at Southern Mississippi for three seasons before jumping back to the NFL.

Whoever John Dorsey may choose to replace Freddie Kitchens as the interim head coach, I think that it is essential that they get another guy on the staff more involved with the offense. A guy that coached a team with both Beckham and Landry on it in the past, and has been coaching Beckham the past four seasons. That guy is wide receivers coach Adam Henry.

Adam Henry was the receivers coach for the LSU team that Odell and Jarvis both played on and thrived in during their college careers. Then, after a quick stint with the 49ers, Henry had been the receivers coach for Beckham’s New York Giants since 2016. At LSU, the pairing was arguably the most dynamic in the country. With the Giants, Beckham flourished despite a less-than-stellar quarterback and a lack of other weapons on his offense to draw the attention away from him.

With Beckham finally voicing his frustration about his lack of usage, getting him involved in the offense should be a top priority. While Henry may not have been the mastermind behind the play-calling that worked for OBJ in New York or the offense that allowed both Beckham and Landry to shine at LSU, he has to have some insight into how the two can work well together and how to get Beckham more involved in the gameplan.

If it was me, I would lean towards Monken as the new head coach. Wilks’ Cardinals squad was just 3-13 last season (leading to his firing after just one season). Also, the defense that he has been leading this season has lacked discipline and fundamentals, with penalties, blown coverages, and missed tackles. Maybe not promoting Wilks will send him a message that he needs to get his defense playing with more consistency and discipline.

As the head coach at Southern Miss, Monken turned that program around in three years from an 0-12 team to a 9-5 bowl-bound squad in his tenure. While it took a couple of seasons to fully turn things around, Monken clearly had to eliminate a toxic culture from the locker room and instill a new mindset with his team. That is exactly what the Cleveland Browns need right now.

As an offensive-minded coach and play-caller, Monken has turned around multiple units as a coach. Southern Miss, Oklahoma State and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers all saw their offenses, particularly their passing games, drastically improve with Monken in the fold.

As recently as last season, Monken’s offense in Tampa Bay, led by two different quarterbacks throughout the year, led the NFL in passing yards while ranking third in total offense. With his background as a receivers coach, he should also be able to help Beckham thrive as a number one receiver. Under Monken, Bucs receiver Mike Evans had three 1,000-yard seasons and two Pro Bowl selections.

The only reason I may be hesitant to promote Monken to interim head coach and play-caller would be if I felt that it may be too much on his plate. If Dorsey and the rest of the front office want him focusing on calling plays with Freddie Kitchens gone, then maybe they lean on the NFL head coaching experience of Wilks. Either way, though, one of the coordinators would likely take over as head coach while still leading their respective side of the field.

I think with the extra input from Adam Henry as the new offensive coordinator, a Todd Monken led team, as the interim head coach and play-caller, would be able to finish the season strong. Freddie Kitchens may have been rushed along a little too quickly by Dorsey and the Cleveland Browns, as the experiment is clearly not working. It is time to call it quits, admit the mistake, and move on for the betterment of the football team.

Kitchens was worth a shot after the success last season, but maybe former offensive line coach Bob Wylie was right when he said Williams and former quarterbacks coach Ken Zampese were more instrumental in the team’s turnaround than Kitchens.

Regardless, Mayfield and the Browns clearly are not flourishing under Kitchens. Half the season is enough time to recognize that. The window to salvage the season is closing. A change HAS to be made and made right now. Not at the end of the season.

Not making a change at this point would be a sign of complacency, and that is not the message that Browns fans, and probably the players, want to hear right now. Cleveland doesn’t want another top-five draft pick. They want a successful football team. That is what they have been promised all offseason and all season long to this point, and they have gotten anything but.

Cleveland deserves to know that the organization is willing to do whatever it takes to give them a winning team. This city eats, sleeps, and breathes Browns football. No more top draft picks, no more “maybe next year”, and no more heartbreak for the “Mistake on the Lake”.