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Thanks for the video.

I see advantages and disadvantages of having 5 DBs. I think you should have 5 and even 6 DBs at times, but I think playing 3 LBers on running downs makes sense, too.

I hope Wilks mixes things up and isn't married to one or two looks.

I knew that Wilks was the HC and that he had a DC. However, are you saying that Wilks didn't want to switch from the 3-4 to his previously used 4-3 when he hired Holcomb? LOL

I reserve judgement on any coach until I see
the games begin
all I heard in the past was when the Browns hired
a new coach was how great he was he was going
to transform the defense or offense.
how the rest of the North was going be dominated.
the hype over Greg Williams and Brian Dumboll was the worst.

I am not trying to mislead anyone, mac. And I resent that you are implying that I am.

Have a nice day.

I too am cautiously optimistic. The Browns have the talent to run away with the division title. Do they have the coaching? I don't know. Kitchens has never been a head coach before. Browns should win the division but you never know.

I want nothing but good things for our team, but I wanted to keep GW as head coach and Freddie as OC. hopefully I'm proven wrong.

I've been curious about the dynamics and thought process that retained FK and sent GW on his way. Knowing that would tell us a lot, you know?

Same here. Like Lamp, I was all for and thought for sure GW was going to be named HC. Freddie must have nailed the interview while Gregg bombed his.

I think the Freddie hire had ALOT to do with his relationship with Baker and wanting to keep things consistent with a young QB. Had GW remained HC, almost certainly Freddie would have moved on.

I don't think so. Greg would have probably kept Freddie as OC and I doubt any other team would have hired him as head coach.

Not that I think we made the wrong decision by any means. I just don't think any other team would have taken a shot with him after such a short stint as a coordinator.

JMO

Eh... I dunno. Looking back, there were some pretty questionable coaching hires that happened. Freddie being hired away wouldn't have been the craziest thing to happen.

We will never know. I still think the odds would have been pretty slim, but as you said, crazy things happen.

Exhibit 1: Arizona.

Gregg would never have been named head coach here. He was given an interview, but he is a defensive coach whose defense sucked, and we have a young QB who the team wants developed. When Freddie came in and righted the ship on offense, it was almost certain that he would get a long look.

I'm not going to get in who should be the HC and all of that, but I think GW is a very good DC. In fact, I think he is quite a bit better than Wilks.

Even if they didn't lose Freddie immediately, had the Browns come out and won 10 games, they almost certainly would have lost him next year...

So I don't think the decision to part ways with Williams and make Freddie the HC was as much about this year as it was about locking in Freddie (who is 44) for the long term as the HC, compared to locking in GW (who is 60) and run the very serious risk of quickly losing Freddie and any continuity with Baker, etc...

I certainly agree it was a decision made with the long term future of the team in mind.

Me thinks when KJ gave Freddie the OC job w/o any input from Gregg it was a sign of what KJ thought he might have in Freddie ... it wouldn’t shock me at all if KJ knew he had sumptin special in Freddie then and wanted to see what he could so with the opportunity ...

I’m guessing Gregg only got the interim HC job cause he had HC experience and was a coordinator ... he made all the sense in the world in that situation ...

Well ... the day the season ended i said Freddie is for real and was laughed at and ridiculed by most ... were u one of them Mr. Peen? ...

I only ask cause back then only myself and maybe one or two others thought he had a chance ... and it took most of u a long time to get on board with him even having a chance of getting the job til deep into the interview process ... if u were one of them ... u may wanna get out a grain of salt or two when your placing odds on if another team may have hired him ... *L* ...

ESPECIALLY SEEING as how this year one HC was hired out of college where he had a losing record as a HC and vey little to no NFL experience and another dude that came from the QB coach ranks i believe ... not sure that dude had ever been an OC ... if he was with the lambs he certainly didn’t call plays ... and to top it off someone hired Adam Gase ... ...

Freddie’s odds were prolly higher than u thought ...

U know what really shocked me ... with all the openings ... how did Dan Campbell not get one ... that dude seems to be a heck of a coach and highly thought of but he can’t seem to land a job .. he’s one of the short list of guys i wanted ....

I made this point between the end of the season and the FK hiring; Freddie was supposedly hired on Todd Haley's recommendation as Running Back Coach, but his title was Associate Head Coach/RBC. Nobody else on the coaching staff had AHC in their title. I'm pretty sure Haley didn't have that authority, that had to be a decision coming from higher up. Then, for the final pre-season game, he was tapped to run the offense over Haley, Saunders, and Saunders Jr.

This combination of facts suggests to me that someone, probably Dorsey, had an idea about Freddie's potential (and possibly a back-burner plan) from the moment he was originally hired.

Great point about the A/HC title ... i remember u making that point ... i forgot ... great catch back then ...

I actually typed out in my response and decided to delete something right in line with what u just said ...

I deleted basically this “ i bet when Dorsey called around during the interview process to guys like the Tuna, Arians and Saban just to name a few the recommendations he got from this guys had to have made an impression and caught his eye even from that early on . .. i mean these are well respected top of the class football minds and thats just the start of the list” ...

So i agree with U ... I think Freddie caught Dorsey’s attention possibly that early and then Dorsey kept a keen eye on Freddie and he impressed every single step of the way ... lets hope this step is no different and he’s a rousing success ...

Man, wouldn't it be great to have the same GM/head coach/QB for the next 10 years or so?

It sure would and I hope w/all my heart we do. I do want to caution those who are patting themselves on the back in that this coaching staff hasn't won--or lost--a game yet. It might be wise to wait and see what they do w/all this talent.

I'm telling you, expectations are extraordinarily high and if the Browns don't meet those expectations immediately, things could get very ugly for the coaching staff.

I still remember the thousands of posts of how Phil Savage was a "genius." And how RAC was going to lead us to great heights. I remember almost every single coach and GM being talked up. Hell, I even remember cautioning people about Hue. And I almost always defended each of them later on when the cheers turned to jeers. I'm not bad-mouthing our coaching staff, but it might be wise to take a wait-and-see approach.

Ahhh….one more time....I am not saying we should have kept Williams. I am glad we hired Freddie. I am also saying I think the odds small Freddie would have been hired by another team as a head coach.

I also agree Freddie would have been hired as a head coach after this season.

I also don't need you to explain these things to me and making it sound like I didn't want Freddie or am not smart enough to know he wouldn't be our coach if we didn't hire him for this season.

I simply said the odds of him being hired as a head coach of another team after last season was pretty small because the sample size was small.

It makes sense we would have done that because Dorsey got to know the guy and felt the sample size was large enough due to inside knowledge.

Understand?

Common denominator then? No QB. No talent.

MUCH DIFFERENT NOW.

True. But, we still gotta do it on the field, bro.

Not sure how you know all of these things and I'm not being snarky. I just don't know how you know.

Also, I don't think the decision was unanimous. It was reported that the Analytics guys favored the dude from Minnesota and Dorsey wanted Freddie. Dorsey won out and made a comment about I got what I wanted, or something similar to that.

I’m with u bone ... i feel real good about Freddie ... real good ... it don’t mean its going to work out but i feel real good about him ... dude’s grinded his arse off and been handed nothing .... everyone from his past loves him .... and he has a TON OF TALENT ...

The way he got here .. who got him here ... the talent he has here ... the reasons the coordinators took the job ... dudes so well respected ... he’s going to be him and i look forward to seeing what he can do with this team and the plays him and his staff can design for talent on O ...

from Haslam's opening remarks at the introductory press for FK : "But at the end of the process, unanimously, we all felt that (head coach) Freddy (Kitchens) was the right fit for this organization moving forward." https://www.clevelandbrowns.com/news/bro...ress-conference

I guess the key words in there is "by the end." I do remember that there were articles that were posted on this board about how Dorsey wanted Freddie and the analytics guys wanted the OC from Minni.

It's not a big deal, but it's worth mentioning.

I don't think it was they wanted the Minnesota guy as much as it was everything pointed to we needed to bring him in for a interview. At any rate, it isn't all that important, at the end of the day I think everybody agreed that Freddie was the guy.

This isn't a bickering point.

I see we both posted at about the same time and are in agreement.

j/c

I think a lot of this has to do with what you're building your franchise around. This franchise is being built around Baker Mayfield. So it stands to reason that if you find a man you feel is capable of being an NFL HC, who is young enough and has a great rapport with your young, franchise QB, you create a situation where there's a chance they can work together for the long haul.