STILL WONDERING ABOUT FREDDIE

By STEVE KING

9-11-19:

I still don’t know if Browns head coach Freddie Kitchens gets it.

In fact, if I had to say one way or another, I would lead toward the supposition that he doesn’t get it. Either that, or it’s some kind of smokescreen. Whatever the case, it doesn’t sound good, or smart – not all.

I’m talking about Kitchens’ approach to fixing all the penalty bug that doomed the Browns in their 43-13 loss to the Tennessee Titans on Sunday in the regular-season opener.

I just don’t think he realizes how bad – embarrassingly so – it was really was.

Kitchens was asked if there was a heightened attention to detail in practice on Tuesday after the Browns had a nearly record number of penalties (18) and penalty yards (182).

“It was addressed, and I think these guys are committed to doing something about it,” he said. “We will see. But this is an everyday process. Just like training camp, it is an everyday process. We will continue to work on it.”

“Addressed” it?

An “everyday process?”

“We will see”?

Are you kidding me?

You’re kidding me, aren’t you Freddie?

You have to be kidding. You can’t be serioius.

That, to me, indicates that the penalty problem wasn’t nearly as big of an issue to Kitchen as it was to every other member of the free world.

And that’s a shame, for it should be the almost the entire focus going forward. It has to be, really.

The Browns have no chance – absolutely, positively no chance – to win any games this year if they don’t get this themselves more disciplined and more prepared to play.

And then to have left tackle Greg Robinson react the way he did to the Browns’ woes, being ejected after kicking a Titan.

This team was out of control, and Freddie Kitchens had better figure out a way to get it under control – and right away.

More BDD:

YES, OF COURSE. WILLIAMS WANTS TO BEAT THE BROWNS

I’ve often said that people in sports are built differently than the rest of us average folk.

In addition to being much more athletically gifted – at least the athletes and also most of the coaches and managers, who are former athletes themselves – they also have a tremendous ego. Their belief in themselves – that they can do absolutely anything they put their mind to – is what made them successful in sports.

And so it is with Gregg Williams, the first-year defensive coordinator of the New York Jets. Because of what happened – and didn’t happen – shortly after last season ended in Cleveland, he desperately wants to beat the Browns.

Williams, of course, served as defensive coordinator of the Browns for all of 2017 and the first half of ’18 before the staff was blown up, as it were, in the middle of the year, with Hue Jackson being fired as head coach and Williams being promoted to fill that void. At the same time, Freddie Kitchens, who had previously been the running backs coach/associate head coach, was upgraded to offensive coordinator. With the rejuvenated offense leading the way, the team overall became rejuvenated and turned its season completely around, finishing 7-8-1.

Shortly after the season was over, Williams was passed over for the head-coaching job on a permanent basis and he was none too happy about it. The two men, he and Kitchens, who apparently were never really close to start with, became more estranged from one another.

And so here it is just eight months later, in Week 2 of the 2019 season, with the two men crossing paths again as the Browns visit the New York Jets for a nationally-televised Monday Night Football game. Both teams are 0-1 and very much in need of a victory and, as mentioned, Williams, with that big ego and all, is desperate to beat the Browns, not just beat them, but thrash them and humiliate them, along with Kitchens, who doubles as the team’s offensive play-caller and thus against whom Williams will be scheming, and as well General Manager John Dorsey, who, according to Williams, never really considered him for the head-coaching job.

It makes for a great storyline, especially since Kitchens did not exactly receive rave reviews for his job in Week 1 as the Browns got routed, 43-13, by the Tennessee Titans in the season-opener last Sunday. Williams, of course, would love to add to that misery – much more so, in fact.