Among the tumbleweeds and lizards of Central Arizona is where the Cleveland Browns came to make their stand. To say to the sporting universe "Your condemnation of us is premature, we will rise above your petty insults and return to Cleveland as a .500 football team!" Against the bleak backdrop of the desert our beleaguered Browns endeavored to come together as a united front against the swirling criticism, and to face down the naysayers. And after a scant few minutes into the game, the Heisman winning quarterback from Oklahoma went 5-5 on the first possession, and had his team out to a quick 7-0 lead faster than a roadrunner can dash across a highway. But wait...who is that man? His jersey is red, not orange. Wait a second, that's the wrong Heisman winning quarterback from Oklahoma! In fact, the aforementioned signal caller is in fact Kyler Murray from the Arizona Cardinals, and despite the 6 game losing streak he led his team down the field, and out to a lead they never would relinquish.
There are only two relevant statistics to point out this week. First, at one point the Browns were down 35-17 to a terrible team that hadn't won a game since early October. Second, the Browns gave up 226 rushing yards, and Arizona averaged an astounding 6.5 yards per carry. Despite the shitty season the Jets are having, Gregg Williams must laugh aloud on a daily basis at how bad the Browns are against the run. (His Jets defense is second in the league against the rush, 88.8 yards/game) Through the course of this season, I have spent some time analyzing and quoting a fair amount of stats about the Browns team, but that's pretty clearly not necessary at this point. Kareem Hunt blasted his teammates and made it very clear that there a number of players that are not giving 100% on the field. Couple that with reports about Browns players yelling at the Arizona sideline to "come get me" and all of the sudden we're engulfed a downward spiral of no return. Plenty of NFL pundits are gleefully reporting on the dysfunction in Cleveland and (correctly) pointing out the all of the preseason hype was far, far overblown. The body language is terrible as well. There are players on the bench during a game with heads hung low, seemingly detached from the game being played. You can watch youtube videos without sound and get a sense of just how this season has gone off the rails for Baker Mayfield, Freddie Kitchens, and company. In short, there is an abundance of evidence that points to those three dreaded words; Same Old Browns.
So even with two games remaining, the finger pointing has begun in earnest. I don't think you have to go much further than GM John Dorsey. He is primarily responsible for promoting Freddie Kitchens to head coach, even though it was Gregg Williams that took over in week nine and guided the Browns to a 5-3 finished to the season. (However, recall from my season preview that the wins were all against terrible teams.) I don't know if Williams would have more wins than Freddie this season, but I do think the defense would have been better, although to be fair there have been injuries and suspensions. One could argue that this is an incredibly undisciplined team, and that culture contributes to a lot of the problems we've dealt with this year. Mark Kay Cabot wrote a great piece about the joint practices with the Colts in the preseason and how Kitchens encouraged and even applauded violent behavior in a practice. Certainly there was carry over from that preseason culture into week one when the Browns were completely throttled by the Tennessee Titans. (Cleveland committed 18 penalties and were beaten by 30 points. Hue was never even beaten like that at any point in his tenure.) From that moment, a lot of Browns fans had to be worried deep inside about a coaching staff that couldn't come into week one with a better game plan, and also about the players themselves looking completely unprepared to play football. Clearly it was going to be a quite a test for Freddie to right the ship in Cleveland and head towards a winning record and the playoffs.
However, the Browns continued to languish during September and October, and found themselves at 2-6 after what was probably the worst loss of the season to the Denver Broncos and a no-name quarterback making his first ever NFL start. I think our struggles against rookie quarterbacks is what strikes me most about the season. I have to believe that Gregg Williams could have schemed against Brandon Allen, Devlin Hodges, and Kyler Murray and made their Sundays more uncomfortable. Even winning two of the three would have put us at 8-6, and maybe he doesn't get shellacked in week one as well. Anyway, nobody can really say for sure what would be different with Gregg Williams calling the shots, but what is clear is that we've got 14 games that indicate that Freddie at this point is not an effective head coach in the NFL. That's 100% on John Dorsey as general manager. It was a strange decision at the time, and it didn't seem like there was an extensive process to consider other possibilities. Instead we've got the leading rusher in the NFL, two of the most talented receivers in the league, and yet it wouldn't be shocking if we finish 6-10. That's head scratching to me, to have this much talent on a roster, and to not even finish the middle of the pack. Freddie Kitchens may be a good head coach at some point, but the current situation in Cleveland is in a complete state of disarray.
Despite what everybody else can see, Ian Rapoport wrote about the support for Kitchens within the organization. It was so disappointing to read this article, because I'm quite sure it is accurate. Dorsey firing Freddie in an indictment upon himself as a GM, and I don't think he's willing to do that, unfortunately. We'll see if Jimmy Haslam can intervene, but I think he is unlikely to do so. We could be looking at a nightmare scenario where Kitchens and Wilks are both back next year trying to manage a malcontented locker room. Maybe the pathetic display and effort against the Cardinals will at least make John Dorsey think twice about bringing back Freddie.
Go Browns.
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