The Browns need to fire Freddie Kitchens right now
By John Buhler
It didn’t work and it needs to end now. The Cleveland Browns need to fire head coach Freddie Kitchens to finally put this Lake Erie clown show to bed.
Even though we didn’t expect the Cleveland Browns to complete the season sweep of the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday, one would have thought that the Browns would have attempted to bring their “A-game” to the gridiron at home. Well, that is what a fool believes, as the Browns aren’t fooling anyone. They have devolved into yet another disaster under Freddie Kitchens.
Cleveland may have only been 6-8, but this was the Browns’ Super Bowl on Sunday, having a shot to beat its division rival twice this year. Baltimore is the presumptive favorite to win Super Bowl LIV. The Browns had a shot at handing the Ravens two of their three losses this year. Yet, Kitchens and his cooks served up another poo-poo platter of dysfunction and inevitable embarrassment.
The Browns dominated the first half but goofed like the goofiest of football goofs they are and allowed Lamar Jackson’s team to take a 14-6 lead into the third quarter. Cleveland should have held Baltimore to zero first-half points, yet here we are. We knew that Baltimore was going to adjust at halftime, and that’s why the Ravens won easily 31-15 to earn home-field advantage.
What the second half was basically about was Kitchens screwing up the game plan and his needy, Grinch-shoed diva wide receiver barking about all sorts of dumb nonsense that doesn’t translate to winning. Misery loves company and there is no greater football misery than the Cleveland Browns.
If owner Jimmy Haslam is good at anything, it is firing head coaches. He loves to do it and needs to get Baker Mayfield his fourth head coach for year three in Cleveland. If we want to go with the Week 17 interim for comedic value, let’s make it Mayfield’s fifth head coach in not even three seasons. This is the worst six-win team in football and everybody knows it.
No, the Browns won’t be getting an elite head coach if they throwing Kitchens out of the frying pan and into the fire. The Haslams have earned the right to get the sixth or seventh-best candidate available, who will either be another guy who’s out of his element, Donny, like Kitchens, or a head-coaching retread whose obvious warts we poked fun of before his last team let him go.
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Why achieve Jeff Fisher 7-9 B.S. when you can embrace the man himself? He’s available. As is the greatest massage connoisseur Green Bay, Wisconsin has even seen in Mike McCarthy. All jokes aside, they’d offer some things the Browns are clearly lacking: A direction, accountability and someone who has the maturity to sit at the big kid’s table.