Cleveland Browns: Top-10 newest Browns of 2018
By Shane Carter
The 2018 season was a big success for the Cleveland Browns and we look back at that season and select the 10 most important newcomers
Another season has come and gone for the Cleveland Browns. However, this year, was a year for celebration. Something the city of Cleveland has known little of and that Browns fans haven’t experienced in over a decade.
The team finished 7-8-1 in the AFC North but have the structure in place to set them up for years to come. They’ve got Pro Bowl talent on both sides of the ball and have finally, lo and behold have finally found a quarterback!
With hope, Browns fans and NFL fans, in general, will look at Cleveland’s 2018 season and reflect on how it set them up for success. There are so many players and personnel that are the reasons why the team is the way it is but we only picked 10.
These are the most important, most impactful new additions to the Browns from the 2018 season.
10. Freddie Kitchens
Let’s start things off with the man who is now the head coach of the Cleveland Browns. He was hired to simply be the running backs coach, but was moved up to offensive coordinator following the firings of Hue Jackson and then OC, Todd Haley.
Despite never being even an offensive coordinator, it yielded big success. Kitchens and Baker Mayfield felt like a match made in heaven. Like the first time, someone tried jelly with peanut butter.
As a result, the team went 5-3, Mayfield completed 70.27 percent of his passes and was selected as a Pro Bowl alternate. The offense overall finished 14th in both passing offense and rushing, and 13th overall. A huge improvement on the first half.
The old saying is “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and it just made too much sense to keep Kitchens on this team. This team finally has expectations and it starts with the Head Coach.
9. Greg Joseph
I’m a firm believer in not criticizing kickers for losing the game if you don’t give them credit for winning the game. That being said, if Greg Joseph was the day one kicker, you could make the argument that not only do they beat Pittsburgh instead of tying, but they could have beaten the Saints too by getting them to overtime.
When Joseph was brought in Week 3, he needed to have little margin for error. He did just that.
The undrafted rookie from Florida Atlantic converted 17-of-20 field goals (85 percent), with no misses under 40 yards. His setback was that he was 25-of-29 on extra point attempts.
Given that he was a rookie, he gets a pass. However, knowing his accuracy when it came to field goals of similar distances, he’ll be expected to make more of them next season. For now, it seems that Cleveland has a reliable kicker they can trust.