COACH FREDDIE IS PULLING OUR LEG AGAIN

By STEVE KING

Browns head coach Freddie Kitchens is being delusional – totally so – for the second time this week as he and his team continue getting ready for the regular-season opener on Sunday against the Tennessee Titans at FirstEnergy Stadium.

He was asked on Friday during his daily press conference if his personal excitement for the game has grown as the week has progressed. That’s a great question, but his answer was … well, not so great, and not at all truthful.

“My personal excitement level is pretty normal, like every other year, from the standpoint of I am excited to see those guys perform,” Kitchens said. “Everything we have done from April on has been with direct correlation to getting to this moment. The process of getting there has been different as far as just focusing on getting better and better each day, but this is what we have been preparing for, and I am excited to see those guys go out there and perform.”

C’mon, Freddie. Who are you kidding? Certainly not anyone who follows this team.

Kitchens has come from absolutely nowhere in the coaching profession – no one, even in Northeast Ohio, could have picked him out of a lineup last year at this time – to become an NFL head coach, and not just any ol’ coach, but one who is in charge of American’s NFL darlings right now – America’s New Team, as it were – in the Browns. So you could say that his rise has been meteoric, but is there a word, or term, that means faster than that? If so, then that’s what his upward mobility has been.

This, then, being the first game for which he has served as a head coach at any level, is the biggest moment – by far – of his career and one of the biggest of his life. As such, his heart has been pumping like crazy all week. He’s probably having trouble sleeping, perhaps even eating. By kickoff Sunday, his mouth will be bone dry, as if it were full of cotton.

Just another preparation week? Not nervous?

No way!