Cleveland Browns Week 6 studs and duds is heavy on the duds

Dud: Freddie Kitchens

It’s really starting to look as though Freddie Kitchens was not ready to take on the role of head coach of the Cleveland Browns. General manager John Dorsey made his first-ever head coaching hire this offseason and decided on Kitchens who spent the final eight games in 2018 as the interim offensive coordinator.

While he did well in that role, it was still a massive risk considering his lack of experience. Before taking the interim job with Cleveland after eight weeks last season, he had never called plays in a regular-season game. Before then, he was a position coach trying to make his way through the ranks.

This isn’t to say he had no right being a head coach, just that the lack of experience meant there could be some bumps in the road. The problem is, he’s failing to learn from those bumps and continues to make the same types of mistakes.

One of the glaring problems has been his play-calling once he gets near the goal line. Even with Nick Chubb playing lights out, Kitchens tries to get cute when they get in close. He did that early in the fourth while trailing 25-20. With a first and goal at the seven, he ran it once with Chubb before trying three-straight passes.

The first was a screen for Jarvis Landry which, to his credit, nearly worked and gave them a third-and-goal at the one. However, he followed that up with a fade pass to OBJ that wasn’t close to paying off — which is no surprise given the lack of chemistry between Mayfield and Beckham.

Then it got really weird. The play call again was a throw to Landry, who reached for the goal line but fumbled and it was picked up by Nick Chubb — which is a penalty due to a lame rule that should be looked at. There was also a penalty on Seattle which gave the Browns another chance as the penalties offset. But then Kitchens went off the rails.

He yelled for a time out, angry about the clock not resetting. Then he called his play in during the time out and allowed his team to get all set up on the field. Heck, they even snapped the ball and Chubb was running into the end zone as it was blocked perfectly. But it didn’t matter as whistles were blowing all over the field as Kitchens decided to throw the red challenge flag a full minute or two after the previous play.

He thought Landry should have been given the score, but waited forever to try and challenge it. The call was upheld and then Freddie made an even bigger blunder as he again went for it on fourth down and it sure looked as though he called the exact same play that was blown dead before the challenge. That unsurprisingly led to a loss of yardage and gave the Seahawks the ball back.

Pair plays such as this with the never-ending penalties on the Browns and it seems as though Kitchens has no control over the team right now. He needs to use the bye week to correct a lot of his issues or this season will really get away from them.