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Those rankings were from two weeks ago. Since then, Barkley has had two big games. He's actually #1 in RB rankings now with Chubb at #2.

More detailed piece about how these two are playing for the G-Men/Browns: https://www.profootballfocus.com/news/pr...arts-in-the-nfl

You heard it differently than I did.

I heard someone ask - why don't you go back to what was a strength for Baker at college. . . . and Hue said that's what the Browns/He wants to do.

The issue is that Hue was the HC. Every aspect of the team coaching and scheming and play calling rolls up to the HC. Haley worked for him. . . . . . You heard Hue say he wanted to do something - I heard someone making excuses.

I think the interpretation all depends on how much slack you want to give Hue - and how much you think he was good or bad at his job.

Reminds me of one of Baker's comments after Hue was fired.

https://bengalswire.usatoday.com/2018/11/23/baker-mayfield-bengals-advantage-hue-jackson-no-just-no/


Make of it what you will, but the play on the field speaks volumes..

Barkley is doing all of that on a really bad team.

Surprising he has only won...one Rookie of the week award being on a bad team...

Chubb wins it twice...Does that mean the Browns are worse then the Giants ?

NAH .... Browns just got a better RB...

Barkley is playing really well, and the Giants probably feel vindicated on what seemed like bizarre draft day strategy-- that is, pass on a QB, pass on a big trade from a team (Bills?) desperate for a QB.

That said, Barkley is playing great... on a really bad team. A running back can only do so much. They figure to continue to be bad as long as Eli Manning is their QB and Pat Shurmur is their head coach.

I’m happy with Chubb.

I’m simply saying Barkley is on a horrible squad. Gurley was on a bad team for a bit too, and then he exploded under McVay.

I know Swish..I'm just having a little fun..It's been awhile since the Team and the fans can brag a little..

I think Barkley is doing an outstanding job..It was kind of expected of him to do so being put in the limelight like he was.

I feel Chubb is a good fit for the Browns because he can produce without having that number one pick over his head. I also feel it lets Baker sling the ball more without having to hear...Why aren't you using your number one pick more..

Whatever the case...I'm having fun this season..About time my friend...

Agreed. I’m just glad we have draft picks actually performing.

I hope baker, Chubb, and Calloway are here for the next 10years tearing it up.

Man, that was fun to read.

How long has it been since CLE got positive press? Seems to be a bit more common, of late.

And this is why teams stopped taking RB's in the top 15. They are almost a dime a dozen. Quarterbacks make or break a team. Rb's only look pretty while losing.

Basically Barkley helped improve the team by 2 win so far this season. Baker had helped generate 5.5 more

As we've all said to each other for years (over a decade!) on here: Winning cures everything. Start winning and the press will rave about us.

Actually, I would just say get rid of Shurmur and/or the OC. Eli isn't terrible, he's proven that in the past - but, we all saw the Shurmur offense first hand here and KNOW how bad it is.... I think that is 90% of Eli's problem right now.

I think the Giants are in trouble for the next 10 years... sure they may have fun watching Barkley run all over the place, but Eli is done and unless Lauletta (who I liked) turns out to be the guy the Giants are in trouble.

Shurmur isn't as bad as Hue, but I, and I've said this before, knew he wasn't the guy when early in his tenure as HC here, he was severely outcoached by the Bengals when they ran a play when we weren't even set that scored a TD. I was sitting in the stands and I wanted to go home. I would have fired him right then and there... He's not a super star HC and the second most embarrassing HC we've had.

I agree that the future does not look bright for the Giants. Considering the shelf life of running backs, Barkley's career could be wasted.

Fire Shurmur, draft a QB and they're immediately heading in the right direction. I don't know what type of Mentor Eli would be, but they could sit the rookie if they wanted to.

I don't know if they can just draft one... But I'd trade them Tyrod after we franchise him if they want. Might not be a bad ploy.

Freddie Kitchens: Why the Browns' offense is clicking while he builds a strong offensive-coordinator resume -- Film Room

By Jake Burns, Special to cleveland.com | Posted December 11, 2018 at 02:11 PM

https://www.cleveland.com/expo/sports/er...-the-brown.html

I disagree. All it takes is a QB man. If they hit on one in this next draft, they got the RB, the QB, and the WR still on payroll.

Their oline and def is a mess, but they will be picking at the top and I believe Eli has a year left in him at least to train the new rook they draft this year.

I don't think the road is as bumpy. We literally went from 0-16 to technically being alive in the playoffs in December.

they'll be fine as long as they draft the right QB this year. That's a big IF don't get me wrong. But idk if it will take 5 or 10 years.

While there's a lot to be said about your comment being correct, I think there's a little more to it than that.

We not only added our QB, but we also revamped our secondary, drafted the top CB in the draft and helped bolster the D.

I think we can look at what Chicago did to the Rams as an indication that the QB alone won't solve all of your problems.

Shurmur's offense was frustrating to watch, true. Add to that his general lack of enthusiasm and leadership.

I've also thought Eli has been overrated for a long time, and he isn't getting any younger. He'll be 38 next month.

I guess we'll see what happens. It just seems like they're putting themselves in a position where you wonder if Eli is good enough and if he is, how long he's going to hold on. At the same time, they'll be just good enough/not bad enough to make it very hard to get a great QB prospect.

Nice find. How the offense has responded since Freddie Kitchens took over as OC has been a pleasant surprise, to say the least.

I especially like how he has gotten Chubb more involved in the passing game. You have to have a certain balance there. Chubb is a beast of a runner but you don't want the offense to be too predictable based on which back is in there.

I'm not saying you use different backs the exact same way.. obviously you don't.. but a defense shouldn't know that Chubb is merely a rusher or pass blocker, and Duke Johnson is the only one that would run routes. You change it up by having Chubb catch a few passes out of the backfield and have Duke get some carries here and there.

Great point Haus.

Actually, we agree. We just don't agree that QBs are easily accessible. This is why I think the Giants better hope Lauletta is the answer. If not then they are in trouble.

Where the Giants draft in the upcoming draft, I doubt there's a QB to be had. In fact I don't know if there's one in the upcoming draft. At least one not better than the second best QB in the last draft where the Giants should have taken one over a RB.

It worked out for us and we still ended up with Mayfield when we passed on Wentz. But will the Giants be smart enough to build assets to get the QB they'll need? We shall see...

Maybe it's just an indication that Goff isn't as good as everyone thinks?

Baker Mayfield has not been under pressure since Freddie Kitchens took over play-calling duties, but that could change against the Broncos Saturday on @nflnetwork per @NextGenStats

https://twitter.com/NFLResearch/status/1072534487660158976

No, that's not it.

So. . . this is really good.

That's kinda like ... progress.

Yeah- I still almost have to pinch myself when I read articles, stats, etc.

So unaccustomed to the positive vibe....

No risk it, no biscuit.

well, there's no doubt Baker loves it ... I'm not opposed to it either

By jinkies! This positive love and a few strokes for the current O after the Purge is absolutely stirring. It should be bigger average with the lame drops and fumbles. It may go up some more. So this is Progress then IMO. And it is big enough to win games.

Fine post for Game Day.

And it works. You don't need exhaustive analytics, endless dissection, and such. A good plan makes the defense react to your strengths and forces adjustments from them. Kitchens has a solid game sense about him that Hue never really demonstrated. Haley is out and it is better.


Don't overthink it. Enjoy the ride. But it is getting better with success.

This is the reason people will stand in line to ride the rollercoaster. All day long.

And who you choose to believe. Both of these guys lost in the running argument they had. Both gone.

Lesson: Don't fix blame; fix problems. Which is what the New Coaches have done.

The Browns Are Factors
There is a reason, if you live in Ohio, to thank the heavens that Cleveland GM John Dorsey fell in love with Baker Mayfield last fall. There is also a reason to be thankful that Freddie Kitchens was handed the reins of the Browns offense seven weeks ago.

On Oct. 29, Gregg Williams took over as coach for the fired Hue Jackson, and Kitchens took over as offensive coordinator for the fired Todd Haley. The Browns are 4-2 since. Four wins. Four Mayfield fist-pumping, howling-at-the-moon wins. Previous 164 weeks: four wins.

Mayfield/Kitchens. Rarely does an NFL shotgun marriage work, never-mind flourish. “Why has it worked so well?” I asked Kitchens on Friday.

“Because Baker is starved for knowledge,” Kitchens said in his Alabama twang, the accent Mayfield imitates almost daily. “He loves learning. I’ve told him, ‘Your work in progress is never gonna be complete, ever. There’s always gonna be things you can work on, new things.’ Why limit what he can become? He loves that. You see that every week, how much he loves it.”

We saw it in real time Saturday night in Denver, with the game clock and play clock running; 12 minutes remaining, Cleveland down 13-10, first-and-goal at the Denver 2-yard line.

The Browns didn’t huddle at first, preferring to keep the Broncos in their sub defense with two defensive linemen and five defensive backs; Cleveland had run the ball well against that Denver defense, so Mayfield didn’t want them to be able to substitute. This was going to be a run by Duke Johnson, with a tight end next to the right tackle. But with 26 seconds left on the play clock, Kitchens called for him to huddle to call the play, to ensure everyone was on the same page. Quick; don’t let Denver have time to substitute, he told Mayfield. The QB hustled his 10 mates in and out of a quick huddle, looking at the Denver defense while he called the play. The Broncos had a sub—from TV, it looked like corner Bradley Roby—ready to come in, but … “Get to the line!” Kitchens yelled into Mayfield’s helmet before the sideline-to-quarterback communication shut off at 15 seconds. No defensive changes.

At the line, Mayfield got a hint the Broncos could be playing man coverage with four safeties and one corner (due to injury and an ejection). With 10, nine, eight seconds left on the play clock, Mayfield changed the play to a pass, turned around, and moved Johnson from his right to his left—physically moved him, with his hand on Johnson’s shoulder. Denver linebacker Todd Davis inched across the formation, trying not to give away what Mayfield saw: man coverage. To Mayfield’s left was a pure safety, Justin Simmons, with two games of some experience playing slot corner in his three-year career. Not outside corner, where the fleet fly. Simmons has average speed, and his man, Antonio Callaway, is a 4.4 wideout. Big edge, Browns. Mayfield knew.

Play clock at :02. Snap. Callaway got inside Simmons, easily, and broke inside on a quick slant to the middle of the field. No safety help. Easy. Pitch-and-catch, Mayfield and Callaway. Winning touchdown. Cleveland 17, Denver 16.


John Colosimo
@JCozmo
· Dec 15, 2018
That play was so damn awesome. baker bring them in....that smile....Touchdown.

Browns lead in Denver.


John Colosimo
@JCozmo
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10:52 PM - Dec 15, 2018
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“What happened on that play was far beyond elementary thinking,” backup Browns quarterback Drew Stanton told me.

This single play represented huge next-level growth for Mayfield, and seven weeks of chemistry between Kitchens and Mayfield. Now, at the line, Mayfield has been given the freedom to change plays (even very late on the play clock). That’s because he’s a sponge, and has worked to learn all pre-snap contingencies, and Kitchens trusts his judgment.

In about 28 seconds, Mayfield went from run to huddle to run to moving the back physically to spying indicators of man coverage to changing the play to a pass to the winning touchdown pass to celebrating like a uniformed Tarzan, pounding his chest.

You know what I saw in that moment of intense celebration, almost over-the-top celebration, by Mayfield? Not I just put a dagger in the Broncos on the road with a huge play. To me, it was more Mayfield thinking, I am learning some serious s— right now, and I am executing it at the highest level of my profession. And I just got here.

The Browns are factors in December. Baker is starved for knowledge.

Those two things are related.

The impact of the 44-year-old Kitchens on this NFL season is so cool. He’s been touched by some strong and historic and innovative coaches. The Alabama kid played quarterback for three years under Gene Stallings in the 90s … Worked as a grad assistant on Nick Saban’s LSU staff in 2000 … Coached the tight ends (including Jason Witten) in 2006 on Bill Parcells’ last Dallas staff. “Incredibly important year,” Kitchens said. “I learned how to manage a team. I wish I had more time to learn from him. Jason Witten taught me, just by seeing him work on the field and in the film room and the meeting room, how to be an NFL coach.” … Then Kitchens went to Arizona, staying for 11 years under Ken Whisenhunt and Bruce Arians. He was quarterback coach for Carson Palmer’s four Arizona seasons.


Freddie Kitchens and Baker Mayfield. (Cleveland Browns)
Take that quarter-century of football experience, and you can see the results in Kitchens today. He’s no-nonsense and tough, like Stallings and Saban and Parcells. He’s quiet off the field. He’s the furthest thing from a self-promoter, which could have hurt him climbing the NFL ladder. He’s imaginative, the way Saban is on defense and Arians is on offense. He’s got a way of reaching players, even if it’s in a gravelly way, like Parcells.

“When he first took over the offense here,” said Stanton, who was Palmer’s backup in Arizona, “he was absolutely sick about Todd Haley getting fired. That’s who brought him here. But that’s Freddie. In his first meeting with the offense, he said, ‘We’re gonna be as good as everyone in this room is.’ He wanted ideas. He asked the offensive linemen, ‘What runs do you guys like?’ I’d never seen that before.”

The offense was in the bottom quartile in most categories when Kitchens took over. But in these six games, Kitchens has installed the kind of stuff Sean Payton experiments with weekly in New Orleans. Against the Panthers eight days ago, the Browns ran one of the weirdest misdirection plays of the year. Before the snap, Breshad Perriman came in motion from right to left in front of Mayfield, who was in shotgun. At the snap, Perriman turned back where he came from and got a fake handoff from Mayfield. Then Mayfield began to run left … but Jarvis Landry, also cutting from left to right, sped by Mayfield and Mayfield handed him the ball almost imperceptibly while Mayfield continued to run left with the rest of the offense, like he was going to run a keep to his left. Luke Kuechly and the Panther defense stretched with Mayfield … and Landry had an easy touchdown. Just weird. Kuechly’s never confused. But he was on this play. Clearly it was a surprise to the most instinctive linebacker in football.

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Great play design by Freddie Kitchens to get Landry a walk in TD

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“Why?” Stanton said. “Because Luke Kuechly is one of the smartest players in the league. You don’t fool him. You’ve got to show him stuff to make him think.”

In his second game as coordinator, against Atlanta, Kitchens ran the oddest running formation of the NFL year—three backs with Mayfield in a bunch formation in the shotgun. With that alignment on the field, the Browns gained nine, six and 17 yards. On ESPN the other day, Dan Orlovsky, the former NFL quarterback showed the Browns in “13” personnel—one back, three tight ends. “Are they tight ends? Is one a sixth offensive lineman? Is one split out wide like a receiver?” Orlovsky said. “They played 13 personnel five times against Carolina—and Baker went five for five. They’re doing so much imaginative stuff that Baker’s had more time to throw, from the pocket, that any quarterback in the league in the last six weeks.”

Make the defense think, and even the fastest and most instinctive defenders have to pause. “Freddie might be the Sean Payton of 13 years ago, when he got hired by New Orleans,” Orlovsky said.

“I know this: You have to have creativity to create confusion, and maybe hesitation, for the defense in this game today,” Kitchens told me. “So the team we’re gonna play next week is gonna have to work on a lotta stuff we won’t even have in the game plan.”

Kitchens sounds exactly like the kind of coach teams in a coaching search should investigate. Everyone’s looking for the next Payton, the next Sean McVay. Could it be the barrel-chested Alabamian who, despite never having been a coordinator before, has turned the Cleveland offense into must-see TV in his seven weeks on the job?

As for those aspirations, it seems ridiculously quick. And Kitchens is having none of it. “I don’t think about it,” he said. “I truly don’t. I am here to do a job at this present time. It is no different than any other job I have had. Carson had four of the best years of his life with me, and the single best year of his life with me. But I don’t clamor for attention. I never advertised for a job, never sent out propaganda for a job. I never will.”

After the touchdown strike in the fourth quarter in Denver, Mayfield went to the sideline and hugged Kitchens for four or five seconds. After the game, on NFL Network, Mayfield did a bad Kitchens-with-Alabama-accent impression. It’s clear from what they say and how they interact that no matter what caused this shotgun wedding, it’s working out well. The pictures say it, and the numbers scream it. Mayfield was 2-4 with Hue Jackson running the offense; he’s 4-2 under Kitchens. The relevant numbers, with six games started under each play-caller:

With Jackson: 58.3 percent completions, 6.59 yards per pass, 20 sacks, 78.9 rating.
With Kitchens: 71.8 percent complestions, 8.66 yards per pass, 5 sacks, 111.1 rating.

So GM John Dorsey’s got a tough decision on his hands after the season. Does he:

• Blow up the whole coaching staff and start over with a hot candidate like Josh McDaniels or Lincoln Riley, giving Mayfield his third offensive boss in nine months—and perhaps risking alienating the franchise quarterback, who has grown to like and respect Kitchens?

• Keep Gregg Williams as head coach and try to keep Kitchens as offensive coordinator, and build a staff around them?

• Keep Kitchens as offensive coordinator and find a head coach who would allow Kitchens offensive autonomy?

• Keep Williams as head coach, hope Kitchens chooses to stay, but if he doesn’t, allow Williams to hire his own offensive coordinator?

Compared to the alternatives, those are relatively nice problems to have. But they won’t be easy to solve. For now, it’s best to let this incredible year play out. The Browns, for the first time since the outlier 10-6 season, are playing for something the week before Christmas, and this fun offense is a big reason why.

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/20...?cid=fmiatwKING

J/C

Many of the posts wanting Kitchens to stay (I'm one of those who wants him to stay) are suggesting him as the new head coach's OC. I see very few, if any suggesting him for HC. I get that he hasn't even been an OC before this season, but if not here, he may get his shot as a head coach before long. I think that's the reason I'm for Arians as HC and Kitchens as OC/head coach in waiting. It's the most likely way to keep Kitchens here to continue to develop this offense as he learns more about possibly being a head coach.

Quoted for truth, in all aspects of life.

j/c...