It could have been handled better

What the Browns did to Freddie Kitchens Sunday was inexcusable. Not firing him. It was the way they fired him.

Kitchens addressed the media after the season-finale loss to the Cincinnati Bengals Sunday as if it was business as usual. He had no idea he would be waylaid and become an ex-head coach within hours.

“I’m looking forward to tomorrow,” he said. “We’ve got meetings scheduled through next week and I’m looking forward going to work tomorrow. You know I don’t really buy into the speculation stuff. (that foreshadowed his fate). I’ll work and show up tomorrow and do the best job I can do for the Browns tomorrow.”

That’s four tomorrows in those remarks, almost as if Kitchens had an inkling that his version of tomorrow would never come. But I don’t know that for certain.

What I do know is the Browns should be ashamed of themselves for handling the firing so poorly. They couldn’t have waited until the traditional Black Monday purge of National Football League head coaches to pull the plug? What was their hurry?

At least have the decency to treat the man, whose loyalty to the company in the face of all kinds of adversity throughout the season was admirable, with some respect.

Did they think that poorly of him to release prepared statements from General Manager John Dorsey and owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam III prior to telling him? Why did a national reporter have to be the one to tell him?

Tweeted Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network: “Just for off the phone with an emotional Freddie Kitchens. He believed he had organizational support. He did not.”

Remember when the top men at 76 Lou Groza Blvd, said before the Arizona Cardinals game in week 15 that they had Kitchens’ back barring a disaster ending? The Browns were 6-7 at the time.

Three straight losses obviously qualify as a disaster. But there is a right way and a wrong way of handling such matters. Kitchens did not deserve to exit in such an embarrassing manner.

Yes he was an embarrassment as a neophyte head coach. Learning on the job proved too difficult. His learning curve took numerous hits along the way. But don’t blame him. Blame Dorsey, the man who elevated him to the post.

That brings to mind an old Paul Brown story. The famed Hall of Fame coach and one of his old Browns teams were traveling by bus to the destination of the next game and the driver got lost. He apologized to Brown.” I don’t blame you,” the coach responded. “I blame the person who hired you.”

Dorsey gambled on Kitchens and lost. Made the wrong decision for the wrong reasons. Outside of his prepared statement, he has remained conspicuously silent about that decision.

There is an ongoing culture problem with this still-dysfunctional franchise. It needs to first be recognized and then fixed. Until it is, this clueless regime and the ones that follow will continue to spin their wheels.