Rashard Higgins is back - Browns Daily Dose

Rashard Higgins is back

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By STEVE KING

The Browns’ re-signing of wide receiver Rashard Higgins the other day is, correctly, being viewed as a feather in the caps of Executive Vice President of Football Operations and General Manager Andrew Berry and head coach Kevin Stefanski.

People forget how good Rashard Higgins really is. Keep sleepin’ on him! The man is the best #3 wide out in the league 💪

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— Everything Cleveland (@EverythingCLE_) April 28, 2020

They looked through, and past, all the superfluous stuff – all the junk, rumors and innuendo – to retain the services of a productive player who, I might add, wanted to stay here, as evidenced by the fact he took less than he could have gotten elsewhere to re-sign.

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Talent – especially those who have positive attitudes – is the gold mine of pro sports.

But the re-signing of Higgins is also an indictment – yet another one in a long list – of former head coach Freddie Kitchens and also former General Manager John Dorsey.

It is an indictment of Kitchens for doing what he did in putting Higgins in his dog house for who knows what reason when the Browns last year were sinking fast and needed to get all capable hands – good players – on deck. And it is an indictment of Dorsey, who, as the head of the football part of the organization, had the ultimate say in everything, for standing back, watching what was going on and allowing it to happen, and fester and fester and fester some more.

Let’s be crystal-clear here in reiterating what I said not long ago in another regard in that it is the coach’s No. 1 job not so much to plot x’s and o’s, but rather to manage personalities and build relationships so as to put that aforementioned talent – particularly the top talent – in the best position mentally, emotionally and physically to produce at optimum capacity.

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So, then, Kitchens was derelict in his duty of that, his most important job, and as such was cutting not only his own throat professionally, but also that of every member of the team and entire organization.

That’s a big deal. That’s a huge, huge deal.

Actually, it’s the most significant deal. It is THE deal. Period.

Even if Higgins was a total knucklehead, which was likely not the case based on what we know about him, it was Kitchens’ job to find a way to get him on board so he could play, not for the sake of just Higgins, but also for that of everyone else.

It’s like former Browns head coach Blanton Collier told the players on his decidedly underdog team in preparation for the 1964 NFL Championship Game against the Baltimore Colts, “It’s amazing what can be accomplished when one cares who gets the credit.”

Ego is a big problem in this world, including in pro sports. Nobody cares about the coach’s ego, whether it’s that of Kitchens, Stefanski or Collier. It’s not about the coach winning a spitting match. Rather, it’s about the team winning games.

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