Ian Rapoport on Freddie Kitchens: He doesn’t look like a head coach

The Cleveland Browns hired Freddie Kitchens depsite the coach not receiving head coach interest around the league, leading to odd speculation about why he was not a candidate for any other organization.

Not once during the whole ‘Cleveland Browns name a new head coach’ news cycle did Freddie Kitchens’ looks ever occur to me.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in Cleveland and all my friends look like Freddie.

Maybe it’s because I shave my large, balding white head and consider the look to be downright handsome.

But I mostly didn’t consider Freddie’s looks because this is professional football we’re talking about – a man’s looks got nothing to do with it.

Ain’t that right, Andy Reid fans?

I only bring this up based on what NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport (who at times has been a sharp football reporter) said during his phone-in to the Rich Eisen Show.

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During a discussion about why Kitchens hadn’t been in great demand for head coach interviews like a lot of the other successful offensive coordinators were, Rapoport offered this as an explanation:

"“I’ve talked to other GMs about this a lot – it is possible that Freddie Kitchens didn’t get head coach consideration because he doesn’t look like a head coach.”"

And to that, Eisen shushed him and called Rapoport out for being childish.

Just kidding – Eisen jumped right in and said:

"“You mean because [Kitchens] looks like the guy who was waiting for the Bud Light case to open up with their first win of the season?”"

Ouch, gentlemen. Thought this was the NFL, not high school.

Surely these two professional football journalists and men who are way more Rosemary than George Clooney understand that there could be a million reasons why Kitchens didn’t garner head coach attention this time around besides his uncanny resemblance to every kid’s favorite uncle

For the love of Dorsey, Rapoport and Eisen, this is professional football we’re talking about – a man’s looks got nothing to do with it.

Ain’t that right, Mike Holmgren fans?

But after some further online investigation (read: scrolling through the Twitter feed) I started seeing a few more examples of people look-shaming Kitchens based on his somewhat unflattering media picture:

For instance, a Twitterer named James used a picture of the Bill Dauterive character from the Mike Judge’s television cartoon King of the Hill to mock Kitchens:

And some Twitterer named Cleveland Sports Memes has been absolutely relentless with Kitchens one-liners:

"“Freddie Kitchens looks like a guy who will still have one hand free for a beer while hoisting a Lombardi Trophy. #Browns”“Freddie Kitchen looks like the kinda guy who will wait until Arbor Day to plant his coaching tree. #HireFreddyAlready”“Freddie Kitchens looks like every guy who has ever stopped me in a public place to ask if I know where the bathroom is.”"

Some nice chuckles, fine, especially given that silly-a$$ picture of Freddie.

Now my guess is that if Freddie somehow sees all these comments he’ll have a genuine belly laugh over them and move right along, because the man’s engine is fueled by game film and wins, not hashtags and likes.

So get it out of your system, all you petty enough to judge a man by his looks, have your behind-his-back laughs while you can, because it won’t be so funny when Kitchens, Baker Mayfield and their new Cleveland Browns begin to dismantle opponents next season and start chalking up the pretty wins. And probably some ugly ones, too.

Kitchens has the proven skills and character to lead the Browns, so who cares if he’d get left-swiped on Tinder?

As even the Cleveland Sports Memes guy said after posting all his Kitchens mockery:

“But seriously I don’t care what Freddie looks like, because I don’t see any BS, Politics or Self Preserving Turd Polishing coming from this guy.”

Hue know exactly what he means by that if you’re a Browns fan.

It’s professional football, after all, and looks have absolutely nothing to do with it.

Ain’t that right, John Madden fans?