Mid-week thoughts

There is no other way of saying it: The 2019 Cleveland Browns are a tease. A 53-player, 23-coach tease.

Just when you, the fan, start believing the club’s three-game winning streak is the real thing and they are about to turn a corner, they collectively upchuck a game like Sunday’s loss in Pittsburgh to a third-string quarterback.

All signs pointed to a victory against a Steelers team riddled with injuries and suspensions. The Browns were healthier, had the better quarterback and momentum with the win streak. . 

They had a decided edge in talent, especially on offense. And yet, they fell embarrassingly well short of playing at a high level in the franchise’s most important game in nearly a generation.

Fans were stoked as they anticipated not only the sweep of the season series (the first since 1988), a climb into a tie with the Steelers in second place in the AFC North, but most important retribution for decades of torture by their archrivals.

What was not factored and what ultimately decided the outcome was an ingredient the Browns have yet to master, let alone display. The will to win; the will to do anything that avoids losing.

After a slow start, the undermanned and less talented Steelers took over the game and willed their way to the victory. They did not win this game as much as the Browns, with all that talent on offense, lost it.

The Steelers find ways to win games. The Browns do not.  Full stop. That is why Pittsburgh today is still in the postseason picture and the Browns, with everything to gain and even more to lose, are not.

Leading this parade of misery is Freddie Kitchens, whose appointment as head coach by General Manager John Dorsey last January caused a lot of head scratching and wonderment. It was, at best, a gamble. And now fans are seeing the worst.

Kitchens was a relatively anonymous journeyman position coach with precious little experience as an interim offensive coordinator for eight games last season. Not exactly the ideal résumé for someone seeking a head coaching job.

Dorsey nevertheless chose him ostensibly because of his relationship with quarterback Baker Mayfield. That is not a reason – good, bad or otherwise – to hire a way-not-ready-to-be-a-head-coach someone who has proven to be just that.

The Browns’ ship has been bobbing and weaving the entire season. The lack of stability and discipline is stunning. It is downright impossible to gauge what this club is capable of on a week-to-week basis.

Dorsey needs a steady hand at the top of this abundantly talented, but seemingly fragile, football roster. Someone who actually knows what he is doing. Not someone whose thought process is anathema to the ultimate goal.

In the National Football League, it’s all about progress; getting better. Is the team better in week four than it was in week one? Is it better in week eight than it was in week four? As the season unwinds, the better a team should get theoretically.

Kitchens apparently doesn’t think so. Preparing his team for the week 12 game against the Miami Dolphins, he said he agreed with the notion the offense was starting to play up to its potential.

“We have a long way to go,” he said, “but I would also state the main job of the offense is to do enough to win the football game. We are not looking for style points and not looking at the statistics. I am looking to do enough to win a football game.”

A long way to go? That was week 12, for goodness sakes. Week 12 of a 17-week season? A long way to go does not exactly strike a positive chord.

Now ask yourself this: Are the 2019 Browns better now than they were in week four? How about week eight? And now after week 13, are they progressing?

If the answer is yes, you either are not paying attention or have turned a blind eye to what is really going on. Even during their three-game winning streak, the Browns continued to make many of the same mistakes that led to a 2-6 start.

With better coaching from top to bottom, both strategically and tactically, this team would arguably be 8-3 at this juncture, in great position for the postseason and challenging the Baltimore Ravens for the top spot in the division, not thisclose to postseason elimination.

There is no way the Browns should have lost in Denver to a quarterback making his first NFL start; to the overrated-at-the-time Los Angeles Rams at home; and last Sunday in Pittsburgh to an undrafted rookie quarterback. All three teams were eminently beatable.

As rumors swirl that Kitchens needs to win at least three of the final four games to hold on to his job, I maintain this: If he is retained, expect more of the same next season. He has proven time and again he was an unwise choice and incapable of improving.

The Browns have a history of retaining bad coaches. When Mike Holmgren was president of the Browns for three painful seasons (2010-12), one of his first decisions was to retain Eric Mangini as head coach even though he had lost 11 of his first 12 games the previous season before winning the last four.

Mangini was gone the next season after posting his second straight 5-11 record. And if Dorsey keeps Kitchens next season, it will be yet another case of history repeating itself at 76 Lou Groza Blvd.

The Browns need someone at the top capable of handling and getting the most out of the enormous talent on this roster. Kitchens is not that someone. He is a lieutenant failing badly in an effort to be a general.