By STEVE KING
Yes, that’s true, the Browns certainly can’t afford to panic and start doing all kinds of foolish things to try to fix all the wrongs. It’s not necessary. Moreover, It would be suicide.
Browns head coach Freddie Kitchens said in his daily press conference on Monday that the team can’t overreact to its miserable 43-13 loss to the Tennessee Titans on Sunday in the regular-season opener.
But – and this is a big But – the Browns can’t underreact, either. Just as they would be erring by doing, thinking and saying too much, they would be erring by doing, thinking and saying too little.
What happened on Sunday, especially with all those penalties for all those yards, most of which seemed to come at just the wrong time to negate a good play, wasn’t just some little rough edges. No sir, it was a systematic breakdown of the core of the Browns’ teaching, coaching and understanding.
The Browns had 18 penalties for 182 yards. That’s not only almost incomprehensible, but rather it is indeed incomprehensible – totally and fully, obviously.
If those totals were broken down over three games, then it would still raise eyebrows. Six penalties for 60 yards is hardly a clean performance. It isn’t horrible, admittedly, but it’s not tremendous, either. To have it all in one game is a total humiliation and embarrassment. It’s an indictment of the coaches, especially Kitchens. What were those coaches teaching those players in those spring practices, the training camp practices and all the other workouts and skull sessions? What was going on? Was anyone paying attention?
The opener was like a pickup game, as if the Browns scoured the neighborhoods around their team headquarters in Berea, signed some guys they saw and put a uniform on them. It looked no better than that on Sunday. It really, truly didn’t.
The Browns coaches have to react – well, with the utmost of immediacy and seriousness – to that ugly display in which they seemed ill-prepared physical, mentally and emotionally.
That’s a big thing – a really big thing – no matter what Freddie Kitchens says, and it has to be changed NOW – RIGHT now.
