Monday leftovers

The walls of discontent are beginning to surround Freddie Kitchens as what has become a borderline nightmarish 2019 season for the Browns unfolds agonizingly slowly.

Carping from many corners of the National Football League universe emerged Monday following the Browns’ third straight loss, a 27-13 setback against the New England Patriots late Sunday.

It wasn’t so much that the loss dropped them to 2-5 as it was the manner in which it eventuated. Penalties, turnovers, multitudinous mistakes and a general lack of discipline that more befit a bad football team than one that had title ambitions.

Yes, the Browns right now are playing more like their predecessors of the last two decades, the ones that gave the sport a bad name with the kind of performances that set the game back years.

Peter King of NBC Sports in his lengthy Football Morning in America column declared Monday “the dream is about dead for Cleveland. The Browns need to go 7-2 to have a playoff prayer. Where are those seven wins coming from?”

He cedes them six in the second (and much softer) half of the season, but not Baltimore and Buffalo (in Cleveland) and at Pittsburgh. “If I’m Freddie Kitchens, all I want is a 60-minute game,” he wrote. “Play one of those and we’ll see if the season is remotely salvageable.”

Under his 10 Things I Think I Think, King cited three Browns-related items under what I did not like about week 8: Baker Mayfield, who underhanded the ball to Lawrence Guy of the Patriots; the Browns turning the ball over on three straight offensive snaps.; and guard Joel Bitonio weirdly kicking the ball of Nick Chubb’s hands, handing (New England linebacker) Dont’a Hightower a walk-in touchdown.

Then this: “I think the Browns, who played the first half (of the Patriots game) like a scared and totally unprepared team, are lucky to be 2-5.”

And he made the Browns the subject of his column-ending Adieu Haiku

Cleveland. Two and five.

That August Super Bowl talk?

Cavs playing tonight?

Cleveland area native Joe Posnanski, who writes for The Athletic, bought the pre-season hype and thought this would finally be the Browns’ season. Not anymore. After Sunday’s loss, he tweeted: “I want to like Freddie Kitchens. I really do. I have not yet seen him do a single thing that gives me confidence he can be a successful head coach.”

The piling on continued on ESPN Monday morning with ex-NFL head coach Rex Ryan and former Indianapolis Colts punter Pat McAfee taking shots.

“Any coach in this league would kill for this talent,” said Ryan, who called Mayfield “overrated as hell” several weeks ago. “ You might be the most talented team in the NFL and you’re 2-5. So who’s going down? I promise you (Kitchens) is going down. If they’re not to going to fire the players, they’re going to fire the coach.”

Added McAfee, “(The Browns) are like the Titanic, Everybody thought they were unsinkable. They’ve crashed into every iceberg you could possibly find . . . and if they’re going to let Freddie Kitchens play the music all the way down to the bottom of the ocean . . . that’s a bad decision for the boat.”

If the Browns’ neophyte head coach is feeling any of this, it did not appear that way at his news conference Monday, although he did seem abbreviated in some of his remarks when asked about the team’s numerous problems.

He whipped out his I-don’t–coach-penalties line, which is getting tiring as the Browns continue to assault the rules book at a steady rate. “I’m not answering questions about penalties,” he said. “I’ve never once in 20 years of coaching coached somebody to take a penalty. . . . So I don’t know. I don’t know.”

That’s right. He doesn’t know. Therein lies the problem.

He did alter that notion of not coaching penalties somewhat midway through the fourth quarter of Sunday’s game, deliberately taking a false start penalty on fourth and 11 at the Cleveland 24-yard line to avoid having to use his final timeout even though the Browns trailed, 27-10, at the time and had no chance of winning.

A mass miscommunication caused the punt team to run onto the field on fourth and 11 at the 24. “The buck stops with me,” said Kitchens. “I should not have let that happen, but once the punt team was out there, there were two choices: Use your last timeout or take a penalty. I decided to take a penalty.”

He confessed he had decided at the beginning of the possession that if it ever got to fourth down, he would not punt. “Yes,” he said. “Yes. I should have (communicated that better with the players), which is my fault.”

It’s not the players he should have communicated with. Any head coach knows that. In that instance, it’s his responsibility to tell his special teams coordinator, who would then communicate with the players. That’s how it works.

Asked if having to take that penalty could be an indicator being head coach and play caller might have been a hindrance and an adjustment might need to be made, he declared, “No. That’s not happening. I am calling the plays. I am the head coach. That is not happening.”

Then came the head-scratching decision that had to make fans wonder just what the hell Kitchens was thinking. He went for it on fourth and 16 from the Cleveland 19. It resulted in one of the five sacks Mayfield absorbed on the rainy afternoon.

Of course the idea of coaching penalties is preposterous to begin with. Penalties stem from lack of discipline. That connects directly with the head coach. Sounds as though Kitchens doesn’t want fingers of guilt pointed his way.

He seems to be saying, “Don’t blame me. I don’t coach them that way.” And yet, the penalties continue to pile up: Seventy (accepted) penalties in seven games, not to mention another 18 that were either declined or were part of an offset.

There appears to be no relief in sight for the lack of discipline. The Browns’ only consistency is their inconsistency on a weekly basis.

It would be one thing if the mistakes were corrected. No evidence that’s the case here. Successfully correcting them would be the mark of a good football team. The Browns are not a good football team. Their record is ample proof of that.

This team doesn’t scare other teams as it did last season in the final eight games. No, this team’s biggest enemy is itself. All opponents have to do is be patient and wait. The Browns will eventually beat themselves.

At the risk of sounding repetitious, football coaches fall into two categories. Most are lieutenants, those who excel at coaching a position or coordinate one of the three phases of the game. Only a few are generals, those who rise above the crowd and display the characteristics to handle an entire team in all manner and variety.

Freddie Kitchens is a lieutenant. He has no business being the head football coach of the Browns. He is incapable of concentrating on being the head coach and offensive play caller simultaneously. His lame excuses for his club’s mind-numbing failures on a consistent basis are growing old.

Fans hear from him about how well the Browns practice. All well and good. But it’s the clubs that can transfer those wonderful practices to game day that thrive. The Browns fail time and again. That, too, falls on the head coach.  

Whatever Kitchens is doing, it’s not working and the situation is getting grimmer by the game. The season is slowing slipping away.

(Much more Tuesday)