The Cleveland Browns are hot out the Kitchen. Cleveland has found their next head coach and they are going with Interim offensive coordinator, Freddie Kitchens as their next leader. Kitchens landed the job in large part because of his late season success with rookie quarterback Baker Mayfield. While the Browns may appear to be building momentum, history would suggest that the Browns made an awful decision to name Kitchens their head coach.
Prior to the Browns hiring Kitchens, those 10 names above are the last internal coaching hires from within an organization. Not ONE was re-signed or even made it through a first contract. The only one who even has mild success is Jim Caldwell and that’s because an elephant could win with Peyton Manning. Every single one of those guys flat out stinks.
There are reasons to be optimistic about Kitchens. Baker Mayfield broke the single-season rookie passing touchdown record. That has to be something. Maybe Kitchens is smart. He is a Bruce Arians disciple. The problem is you never want to hire a guy before he’s ready. I found it odd that Arians openly pleaded for the Cleveland job but the Browns decided to promote Arians’ old QB coach in Arizona instead? Seems like a typical Browns move.
Kitchens opened the 2018 season as the Browns quarterback coach. He was promoted to interim offensive coordinator after Todd Haley and Hue Jackson got the boot. That means you’re banking on 8 games of calling plays to translate into a successful head coach. That’s wishful thinking.
Again, I’m not in those meetings rooms. I never interviewed the guy. I have no idea how smart he is. The truth is that the Browns have to hope that Kitchens is the exception to recent history, not part of the trend. We will see sooner rather than later if John Dorsey knows what he is doing.
