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Browns’ OC Todd Monken’s transition not as smooth as planned, Freddie Kitchens playing a larger role: Report


By Mary Kay Cabot, cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Todd Monken’s transition as the Browns’ new offensive coordinator hasn’t gone as smoothly as planned, and Freddie Kitchens is playing a larger role in running the offense than originally intended, sources told Mike Silver of NFL Network.

Kitchens has been doing more in offensive meetings the past few weeks, but only because he’s been gathering input from all the assistants and must make decisions on how the scheme will ultimately play out, a source told cleveland.com.


When Kitchens hired Monken, the former Bucs coordinator, he made it clear he’d continue to call the plays after excelling in that role as interim offensive coordinator for the final eight games of last season. Therefore, Kitchens playing an integral role in the offense isn’t really a surprise. He’s had to spend a lot of time over the past few months overseeing the defense and special teams, and might just be honing the offense heading into training camp.

During OTAs last month, Monken noted that the offense is a “work in progress" because it’s an amalgamation of Kitchens’ offense in Arizona, Monken’s in Tampa and others such as offensive line coach James Campen’s in Green Bay.

“It’s a combination of things with everything you do from starting from how you huddle, how you call it, snap count to moving on to making it ours," he said. “I promise you next offseason will be a lot easier."

He also stressed that his connection with Kitchens was the reason he took the job despite other opportunities.

“He was a big reason why I wanted to come when I interviewed,’’ Monken told reporters. “Not only Baker being here and a young roster, but I really felt like we meshed as offensive philosophy and then how we are both wired. ... I always want to coach for someone that recognizes that we have a job for our players and putting the players first. It has been good so far, and I don’t anticipate that to be different.



“My job is to do whatever Freddie asks me. That’s the job of any assistant coach. Everybody asks ‘what is your role?’ Your role is exactly what the head coach asks you to do. I don’t care what role you have on this field. It can be one of the managers to the equipment managers to one of the trainers to the coaches. Whatever the head coach asks you to do, you do.”

He added that he was trying not to have too many voices in Mayfield’s ear.

“I try to listen as much,’’ he said. “I think (quarterbacks coach) Ryan Lindley does a tremendous job in there. I am in there every day with the quarterbacks. I think he is on point. I only make comments when I feel necessary. Freddie is in there at times. At this point, we are building what we want the offense to be and we will go from there.”

Lindley also noted at OTAs that he plans to visit Mayfield’s former Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley to confer about Mayfield and Oklahoma’s version of the Air Raid. Monken has an extensive background in the Air Raid from his college coaching days.

With Monken taking over playcalling duties from head coach Dirk Koetter in Tampa Bay last year, the Bucs boasted the league’s No. 1 passing game with 320.3 yards per game. Their running game was ranked 29th, and their offense was third overall. In seven games, the Bucs rolled up 450 yards or more.


Monken’s offense put up 48 points against New Orleans in his first game as the playcaller, with quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick throwing for more than 400 yards with four TDs. In his first three games, Fitzpatrick passed for at least 400 yards and three TDs, and was NFL Offensive Player of the Week in Weeks 1 and 2. Koetter took the playcalling duties back against the Redskins, and the Bucs scored three points in a loss.

He went back to Monken the rest of the way, and the Bucs set club records in total yards, passing yards and passing TDs.


https://www.cleveland.com/browns/2019/06...o-a-report.html

I hate when MKC does that. Makes a controversial headline and doesn't really back it up with the article.

She says the transition is not smooth, then writes a piece that shows no evidence of it

Mary Kay is not smooth... It was Obvious from the beginning Freddie was going to have a big part of it.

Reporters don't write the headlines. Editors do.

I am not a Mary Kay fan, but we should be truthful. She almost certainly did not write the headline.

Reporters don't even report anymore, sources told Mike Silver of NFL Network.

If Freddie is still calling plays it would make sense he would be more involved. Cleveland media is the worst

I thought on Day One at his presser as head coach, he said he was going to be the one calling plays. Did that change?

Here's the post I remember making when he said that within the first 5 minutes of the conference: link to post

What does an OC do, if he doesnt call the plays?

Runs offensive practice... run offensive meetings... install the game plan.... ther have been several head coaches who call plays but have an OC... not saying it's right but does happen...

Did you read the article? Look at this in case you didn't.

They do what Monken did in Tampa Bay for most of his 3 seasons there. He helps, or does break down the film from the last week's game. He gets together with the head coach, offers his input into the offense, takes what the head coach decides on and installs it. As noted, he runs the offense on the practice field, gets with the rest of the assistants to let them know what, specifically, to teach for that week in their individual meetings and sessions, and so forth.

Play calling is Sunday. The OC's job lasts all week long.

It makes me quite pleased if Freddie is calling the plays. He did a great job last year.

Yep. Freddie did a great job of calling plays last year.

And thanks guys for the info.

Most people don't know that. Roy Hewitt writes the sports headlines.

I am okay with Freddie calling the game. This is about where I expected the O to be. Freddie needs to be certain he has a handle on the O. Kinda surprised that media types would be too surprised at this point in preparations that it isn't smooth.

Do not care for MKC overall as she seems to report sources rather than getting her own stuff. She seems to pan for the negative more than I care for. But this headline is bogus and misleading. Shame aplenty for this headline spin who all got its misleading bent into print.

What's her point...

I mean, he is calling the freaking plays....but NOW he is playing a "larger role"?

#NothingBurger
#MaryKayCrapot.

Home town papers maybe...big ones like the PD, not so much. The main reason is the reporters file their story by deadline that day. The copy editors work the evenings to lay out the paper to send it to roll the presses.. They decide how much space a article is going to receive. The reporters have no clue as to had many characters need to be in the article title because they don't know how it is going to be laid out. Is it one column running top of page to bottom? Is it going to spread across the page, quarter page?

Like I said, what's her point.

The guy that will be calling the plays BETTER be heavily involved in the installation of the offense.

It's possible that Freddie felt that the earliest install went in a direction he didn't want it going, and so he is making some changes to it.

He seemed to have a pretty good handle on the things that his players did best, and maybe he felt that they were moving too far away from some of those.

I love it when MKC reveals that her 'source' is the NFL Network. This is a poor example of journalism. All she means is that she is regurgitating a news report from another outlet, and she should mention it as such in the interview question to Landry.

She has no source on the matter. She is running off another outlet's report. And according to Landry a pretty bunk report at that....but that is what you get with Mike Silver who has an axe to grind during NothingBurger time in the NFL.

#MaryKayCrapot
#NothingBurger

Usually defenses are ahead of offenses this time of year. Offenses require a certain amount of timing, precision, and accuracy and it's hard to have those at a high level in June. Even moreso with a new offense.

Not a surprise when you hire an "air-raid" OC. If our new OC was calling the plays it would be heavily pass oriented and every play would be from the shotgun. I was not a fan of that hire. We had a really good run/pass balance last year. We have some really good running backs on this team. Chubb NEEDS to be a BIG part of what we do. I can easily see a 1300+ double digit TD season ahead for him. Which won't happen if we throw the ball every down and line up in the Shotgun on every single play. Baker played really well under center last year. I was pleasantly surprised. He was good at the play action and hopefully will be even better this season.

Hey, Bob. What's your dawgtalker's profile name?

I don't know what his name is on Dawgtalkers. But I love his sausage gravy and biscuits. Try a location near you.

"Bob Evans. Down on the farm."

https://www.bobevans.com/

This is a pretty good guess. It's a slow time for news and stories like this will pop-up because there isn't much else to write about.

It is very funny to read the criticism of certain reporters after those same people have posted tweets and articles from complete hacks that very few people haven't even heard of as if they were gospel.

It's the Twitter universe. Suddenly anyone who agrees withe their opinion is a journalist and anyone who doesn't agree with their opinion is a hack.

Oh Twitter is much worse than that..

Yes it is but I made a concerted effort to be kind. And that's not always easy for me.

Jarvis Landry on offense: A lot to learn, it takes some time

Josh Alper,ProFootball Talk on NBC Sports 20 hours ago

A report on Thursday indicated that the Browns’ transition to offensive coordinator Todd Monken has not gone as well as hoped and that head coach Freddie Kitchens has been playing a bigger role in installing the offense than anticipated.

It’s unclear how big a role Kitchens was expected to play, but it stands to reason that he was always going to be involved given the fact that he’ll be calling the plays in Cleveland this year. Wide receiver Jarvis Landry was asked about the report on Friday and he didn’t dispute Kitchens’s involvement or the fact that some things haven’t gone smoothly, but he didn’t make it sound like Monken was in over his head.

“I have no idea about that,” Landry said, via Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com. “Freddie has done a great job of monitoring, stepping in when he needs to step in. Todd continues to teach us the way — every guy is different as far as learning so continues to try to teach us. We kinda go from there. It’s a new offense. There’s a lot to learn. There’s a lot of moving parts. It takes some time, not everything goes smoothly.”

Reports of difficult patches during offseason installation will only be remembered if the Browns offense fails to ignite this September and the team has all of training camp to work toward making sure that doesn’t happen.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/jarvis-landry-offense-lot-learn-152314929.html

I wonder why we are changing offenses? I thought the best thing w/all the coaching changes last year was Freddie's offensive play calling. I wonder why we would want to move away from that?

Very good question. Perhaps it's Freddie v2.0...

I really liked the changes Freddie made to last year's offense. He seemed to shine in that role.