Cleveland Browns: Making this offense Dangerous again

The Cleveland Browns were a team without an offensive identity in week one. How can Freddie Kitchens get this offense to reach its full potential and help make them the offense everyone expected them to be?

The Cleveland Browns offense had difficulty sustaining drives in the season opener against the Tennessee Titans. The Browns committed an obscene amount of penalties that kept them at less than ideal down and distances. But even when they weren’t playing from behind the sticks, the play calling of Freddie Kitchens was stagnant and predictable. Getting back to basics should be in order as they prepare to head to MetLife Stadium for a Monday Night Football matchup with the New York Jets.

Last season when Kitchens took over as the play-caller, he was a revelation. How was he able to get the offense going and what exactly made him successful dialing up plays? Also, what has changed since last season? Let’s take a look and determine how this offense can get rolling in 2019.

When Kitchens took over the play-calling duties in 2018, little was known about the longtime NFL assistant coach. What was known was that Kitchens was a former college quarterback at the University of Alabama. The first assumption was that he would be looking to make big changes in the passing game. Well, yes and no.

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The first thing Kitchens did was lean heavy into the run. Nick Chubb quickly became the catalyst in what would become one of the more efficient offenses in the last half of 2018. Chubb saw the lion share of the early-down work and was able to put the offense in 50-50 down situations. From there Kitchens was able to keep defenses on their heels with his choice of personnel groupings.

Kitchens was then able to tap into Baker Mayfield’s potential and let the young quarterback do what he does best. He gave Mayfield quick-hitting pass plays that were predicated on accuracy. Mayfield flourished in making quick three-step rhythm throws and showed a knack for hitting chunk plays off of play-action.

Mayfield’s accuracy combined with his ability to make quick decisions made the marriage with Kitchens dialing up the plays a perfect match. The rookie quarterback credited Kitchens for getting his eyes right, which is just a simple way of saying that Kitchens was able to help Mayfield with his progressional recognition based on defensive coverages. After Mayfield’s eyes were right, the ball seemed to come out on schedule and playmakers started making plays. It was a thing of beauty.

Has Kitchens offensive philosophy changed since last season? That seems highly unlikely. A more reasonable explanation would be that defensive coordinators have had entire offseason to breakdown how Kitchens was attacking last year, and Kitchens was attempting to stay a step ahead.

Too often in week one, it felt like the Browns were trying to win the game on each play. That could be a byproduct of trying to live up to the hype instead of letting the game come to them. It’s hard to be the Globetrotters when you’re not facing the Generals.

It could also be a case of too many cooks in the kitchen (pun intended, I’ll show myself out) with Kitchens trying to marry his offensive principals with new offensive coordinator Todd Monken’s. If that is the case, it’s most likely going to be trial and error until they find the perfect balance. The time needed for such an experiment is a luxury they do not have. The schedule will not allow for it.

How can Kitchens get the Browns offense back on track? The first step should be to make Chubb the focal point of the offense again. The second-year running back possesses a rare combination of power and finesse, that allows him to get both the short tough yards as well as the ability to break the long game-changing runs. Kitchens would be wise to run his offense through Chubb to keep the Browns ahead of the sticks and out of predictable down and distances.

Ultimately, just as it did last season, a successful running attack opens up the passing game. Not just in terms of unpredictability, but also in terms of personnel mismatches. If you punch someone in the mouth enough times, eventually they will start to cover their face and that’s when you can land a knockout blow.

The Browns have more than enough firepower on the offensive side of the ball to light up a scoreboard. Kitchens just needs to figure out the correct order of operations so that Mayfield, Odell Beckham, Jarvis Landry, and David Njoku can produce efficiently. Once that happens, the sky is limit for what this offensive unit can achieve.