Cleveland Browns: 3 Questions ahead of Week 1 of the 2019 season
By Randy Gurzi
1. How will Freddie Kitchens look in the regular season?
When trying to figure out if the Browns will be succesful or not this season, the biggest question centers around their head coach. Freddie Kitchens had a lot of success as the play-caller to close out the 2018 season, which helped him earn this opportunity to coach the young franchise.
Since his selection, there have been plenty of naysayers who believe the rookie coach won’t be able to handle this job. That’s quite a leap to make, especially when you look around the league and see young coaches such as Sean McVay, Matt Nagy, and Doug Pederson all having success early on in their respective careers.
Out of those three coaches mentioned, both Nagy and McVay won their divisions as rookies and both McVay and Pederson were coaching in the Super Bowl by year two — with Pederson winning it all. This isn’t to say Kitchens will win a Super Bowl right away, but it proves that the belief that you need an experienced coach to have success is flawed.
The real keys to success are whether or not the coach knows what they’re doing and if they can command the respect of their team. So far, it appears Kitchens has both of those things.
We all saw his play-calling bring an offense back to life and it appears as though every player on this team genuinely loves the head coach. And so far, the returns look good as the team looked good for the most part in the preseason.
Still, we need to see it all come together in the regular season for Kitchens and his players. It’s one thing to believe he will be a good coach, it’s another to see it in action.
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Sunday will be his first chance to show the doubters he knows what he’s doing. A win against Tennessee will go a long way toward building confidence and making even more believers.