CLEVELAND — Rumors of Freddie Kitchens' demise are greatly exaggerated, right?
Just like rumors of his readiness for the job were.
He’s a rookie head coach who looks like a rookie head coach.
Imagine.
“I think Freddie’s done a really good job,” General Manager John Dorsey said, expectedly, earlier this week. “I think the team has responded very well…I like the offensive scheme that he’s kind of developed which unfolded in the Seattle game by putting 6 (Baker Mayfield) in a really good position to kind of move those chains.”
I’d agree Kitchens has only “kind of developed” a scheme.
I’d also say Kitchens shouldn’t be in trouble six games into his coaching career.
If he is — as one national football writer suggested after Sunday’s loss — then nothing for the good has changed in Berea. Not. A. Thing.
That’s not to say he’s done the “really good job” Dorsey describes. Hardly. But what else is Dorsey going to say of a guy promoted from running backs coach to head coach in a few short months?
Six games in, the Browns are the most penalized team in the NFL. Even allowing for some mysterious officiating calls, that’s an issue.
He’s mismanaged his personnel. Not often but often enough.
His quarterback — the other half of the pupil-mentor relationship that won him the head coaching job — leads the league in interceptions.
The two toughest jobs in the NFL? Quarterback and head coach.
Inexperience is showing on both fronts in Berea.
You only needed to see the clock management at the end of the first half Sunday against Seattle to know that.
No reason to think Kitchens doesn’t have the support of the front office and ownership. Also no reason to think eyebrows weren’t raised when he insisted his thought Sunday was to score, get the ball back from Russell Wilson and score again with under two minutes remaining.
Using the clock in the shadow of the Seahawks goal line to limit a Seattle response to a Browns score was clearly a better strategy.
“At 2-4, you are at a crossroads,” Kitchens told the media this week. “That is what talent has gotten you. (Talent) does not mean you are going to win the game.”
Whether the talent has failed the coaching more often than the coaching has failed the talent isn’t a worthwhile debate.
They should be in this together. There’s time to turn it around with a schedule built for them to finish on a high note.
If the same talent and coaching gets them to 4-8, then all bets are off.
That’s not going to happen.
Right?
RELATED: Freddie Kitchens: Cleveland Browns have to become team instead of group of talented players
- Police have identified 24-year-old Richard Perez as the man who allegedly punched Myles Garrett at a traffic stop in downtown Cleveland after asking the Browns defensive end to take a picture with him.
It was clearly a case of mistaken identity.
Perez must’ve thought he was in Philadelphia.
- I’m from Philly so I can say that.
Plus, it is the customary greeting there between strangers.
- Garrett joked on Twitter that Perez didn’t get his legs into the punch. He called it a “pillow tap.”
And if anybody should know a pillow tap, it’s an NFL defensive end who’s watched penalty flags fall for the last three years after brushing up against the quarterback.
- Odell Beckham Jr. bemoans the Browns 2-4 record, saying the team could just as easily be “5-1 or 6-0” but says they deserve what they’ve reaped.
Anything is possible, I guess.
Perhaps also 1-5 if Sam Darnold wasn’t resting his spleen.
- Astros manager A.J. Hinch is laughing off suggestions that his bench signaled to its hitters that certain pitches were coming earlier in the series against the Yankees and that they were doing it by whistling.
Calling it a “joke,” Hinch added, “had I known that it would take something like that to set off the Yankees or any other team, we would have practiced it in Spring Training. It apparently works, even when it doesn't happen."
Give the Astros a break. Everybody knows if they were serious about spying they’d be using camera phones.
- The Indians complained during the playoffs after an Astros employee was pointing a camera in their dugout from an area restricted for use by photographers.
The Astros told MLB they were conducting surveillance to make sure nobody was spying on them.
And they stuck to that story.
- Cavs guard Jordan Clarkson stopped his Tour de Downtown Cleveland on his scooter to appear in some wedding photos.
“Somebody said, “That’s Jordan Clarkson,” he said. “I said, “Yeah.’ I just jumped in a photo, Just being J.C.”
Not sure what just being J.C. means.
But then talking in the third person, especially in third-person initials, isn’t my thing. That’s just B.S.
- Kyle Shanahan’s 5-0 Niners play Washington this week, prompting the media to ask about his favorite memory of coaching in D.C. (“Working with my father”) and his least favorite (“Everything else.”)
Since it’s the Redskins, I think he still might be missing a few things.
- Meanwhile, Washington denies it will trade All-Pro tackle Trent Williams to Cleveland or anyone else.
Trading a 31-year-old player holding out in a contract dispute during a 1-5 season makes a lot of sense. So expect Washington not to do it.
- Traded from Jacksonville to the Rams, cornerback Jalen Ramsey says he will be play Sunday against Atlanta.
Healed, Ramsey suddenly is after sitting out three games.
Must’ve bumped into a great chiropractor.
Or Ernest Angley.
- Rams GM Les Snead gave up two first-round picks and a fourth-round pick for Ramsey, who still seeks a contract extension.
“We only live once so don’t live your life scared,” Snead told Yahoo Sports.
Spoken like a guy whose team made the Super Bowl a year ago and who works in a city where the NFL fan base is much more likely to protest too few carpool lanes than too few first-round draft picks.
- The Buffalo Bills are favored by 17 points in a game for the first time since 1992 when quarterback Jim Kelly led them to the third of four consecutive Super Bowls.
If you guessed their opponent this week is the Dolphins, you have been paying more attention than most of Miami’s players in the meeting room.
- Ryan Tannehill replaces Marcus Mariota as the Titans starting quarterback this week.
Given what we know of Tannehill’s career, the question isn’t why as much as why bother.
- Tannehill was the eighth overall selection in a 2012 draft now most noteworthy for its colossal swings and misses.
No one would consider No. 1 overall pick Andrew Luck a swing and miss but seven years later he’s retired.
No. 2: RGIII (backup in Baltimore).
No. 3: Trent Richardson (out of the NFL since 2015). You might have heard something about that.
No. 5 Justin Blackmon (out of the NFL since 2013).
Quarterbacks taken after Luck, RGIII and Tannehill were Brandon Weeden (No. 22, out of the league), Brock Osweiler (57, retired this week at age 28.)
And then Russell Wilson, the 75th overall pick in the third round.
Imagine if NFL teams didn’t devote months of intense scrutiny to scouting players, quarterbacks in particular.
- Taken after Wilson that year was Nick Foles, a Super Bowl MVP.
And Kirk Cousins, who will make his 80th career start Sunday against the Lions.
- Patrick Mahomes dislocated his kneecap on a quarterback sneak Thursday. A MRI will determine whether he misses two or three weeks, or instead is out for the season.
The Chiefs led by four when Mahomes exited. They won 30-6, in part by sacking Joe Flacco eight times and returning one of his fumbles for a touchdown.
Not to say Flacco is skittish, but if you pass near at a cocktail party, expect to be wearing his red wine.
- Have a weekend.
