Will Cleveland Browns players be happy to see their former coach?
Perhaps oddsmakers would be willing to take proposition bets on whether Cleveland Browns players will be willing to shake hands or exchange hugs with Freddie Kitchens after Sunday Night football versus the New York Giants. Kitchens, normally the tight ends coach, will be calling plays because offensive coordinator Jason Garrett is out due to a positive Covid-19 test.
Win, lose or draw, will Browns players shake hands or have a hug ready for their former coach? Or do you suppose Baker Mayfield will snub him the way he snubbed Hue Jackson in 2018?
That 2018 incident was the most stupid, ridiculous unfair incident involving Baker Mayfield and the national media. Truthfully, as a rookie contributor for Dawg Pound Daily that season, I was totally proud of how he handled it.
To recapitulate: Hue Jackson was fired in mid-season and hired by the Cincinnati Bengals to help them beat the Browns. In the NFL, beating the Browns means that he was seeking to take money away from his former players, or help his family live better at the expense of their families, to be blunt about it.
It would be understandable if Hue was angry at the Browns and wanted revenge by helping their division rival beat them. Nobody would blame Hue for being mad at getting fired.
But at the end of the first meeting between the Bengals and Browns that year, there was Hue Jackson wanting to hug his former players and yuck it up with them, pat everyone on the back like they were still friends. That was actually surreal to most who were there in person or watching on TV.
Mayfield did the right thing and curtly blew him off. Look, you’re either with us trying to help us win, or you’re trying to beat our brains out. There isn’t much in-between on the football field. You can’t have it both ways. It was frankly embarrassing to see the former coach make himself look so foolish and hypocritical.
Unexpectedly, however, the national media had an absolute cow over the incident and took the wrong side. That audacious punk Mayfield wouldn’t hug his former coach!
It would be different if it had been with a different team, and maybe a year later. But to immediately jump to a division rival and try to beat his former players within a few weeks? That was just low.
Baker Mayfield was 100 percent right on that issue. Baker was in the process of having his career ruined by Jackson and could have been killed by all the sacks he was taking in the ineffective Jackson offense.
Did George Washington have to hug Benedict Arnold? No!
Did Julius Caesar hug Brutus? No!
Did Jesus of Nazareth have to hug Judas Iscariot? Uh… well, actually he did, but he was Jesus, so that does not count.
So why should Browns players and specifically Baker Mayfield be expected to welcome back their old coach who was now being paid to take their jobs away? Get real.
But never fear, your friends at Dawg Pound Daily had the perfect solution, the Hugs for Hue program, in which it was announced, tongue-in-cheek, that at the next Bengals at Browns game, that Browns fans would be allowed to line up after the game in order to give Hue Jackson a hug and make him feel better.
That brings us to coach Kitchens. After the game on Sunday, if there was a proposition bet on whether Browns players would shake his hand, which way would you bet? And what about Baker Mayfield specifically?
Opinions will differ, the line might look like this:
"FREDDIE PROPOSITION BETS(for fun only please)The entire Browns team will snub Freddie Kitchens +2000Jarvis Landry will accidentally collide with Freddie out of bounds, knocking him over +1200Rashard Higgins or David Njoku will punch Freddie out for not letting them play +1000Baker Mayfield will completely snub Freddie +800Baker will tell Freddie, “You’re not wearing Brown and Orange so you don’t matter” -110Several Browns players will shake Freddie’s hand hug him and be happy to see him -120Baker Mayfield will shake Freddie’s hand, hug him and be happy to see him -200Special teams coach Mike Priefer will shake Freddie’s hand -300"
Positive numbers mean that the event is unlikely to occur, and negative numbers mean that the event is considered likely. So, +2000 means a $100 dollar bet would result in a $2000 payout (woo hoo!), but -300 means that you have to bet $300 to win $100
Why is coach Kitchens different than coach Jackson? For one, he didn’t immediately turn around and look for ways to defeat the team he coached, like Jackson did. Kitchens never gave off a negative vibe to his players. The players seemed to personally like Kitchens, although they did have a major problem with 6-10.
It was more the case that Kitchens seemed to be mismatched for the job, not that he was a bad person or not a good football coach. He could be part of a winning coaching staff, just not head coach of the Cleveland Browns.
Finally, Kitchens isn’t working for a division rival who will see the Browns twice each season. Going to work for the Giants is not at all like working for the Bengals just two weeks after being dismissed from the Browns head coaching job. In the NFL, if a coach wants to ever return to an organization in the future, he should probably not take a job within the same division. That creates bad blood.
Guessing is that coach Kitchens will be respected as a warrior, though not necessarily a general.
Very likely most Browns fans are happy Kitchens is still in football, and will be happier still when Myles Garrett and Company shut down his offense and grind it into little bitty pieces.