DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Report: Browns plan to retain Freddie Kitchens 'barring a horrific collapse'

I hate when there is no plan B... its always a sign that plan A is not that good.

Why do we keep on doing this? On the bye week it was already clear this was not going to work out...

I admit I waffle on this quite a bit, but if I'm putting money on it, I'd put my money on Freddie being the coach in 2020.

At some point, someone has to believe in the decisions that were made instead of changing GMs or HCs every other year.

I don't believe in bad continuity, but at some point you either need to realize you aren't cut out to make those decisions or you made the right decision.

Its also about being smart..cutting your losses. Its hard for me to believe that Kitchens is such a genius that its worth all of this. I felt the same about Hue.

Its not working has it was supposed, don't make it worst by going all inn, its not the smart thing to do.

Its very hard to manage a group when you are willing to do anything for some guys who have showed nothing, and then ask for accountability to the others.

Honestly its playing favorites, and that will break any group.

You know, when the news came out that OBJ had been injured all year I thought it would explain a lot to the fans about his production. I thought they would not only understand but give him credit for fighting through that injury.

For some it did. For others it seems they are still desperately looking for a scape goat.

Reasonable points. I think it can be argued either way, really.

Hopefully others see this discussion for what it is: what we think is going to happen, not necessarily what we want to happen

When you criticize a receiver that has 8 yds average per target you sure have high standards... but then they defend the worst QB in the league.. weird.

They also don't see OBJ and Landry are part of the same package...

When that QB puts the ball in the receiver's hands or in his breadbasket and he doesn't catch it, that's on the receiver and he has earned his criticisms.

When you start criticizing the hands of one of the receivers with best hands in the business, that should tell you something. You really have to be a bad QB for OBJ to drop it...

I also fail to see all this drops fans are complaining off...

Its also normal for a receiver that has 14 yds average per reception in his career to have a higher number of drops.

Sure when you pair OBJ with a dink donk QB,can't throw outside the numbers to save his life, its not going to work well...

And by the way, there are no receivers tall enough for us to consider Baker is putting the ball on his hands.. and yes he has been that inaccurate...

You are being completely hypocritical. You want to judge Baker on his performance. But you want to judge OBJ on his history and reputation. Pah. OBJ has dropped A LOT of passes that hit both his hands this year. He's been out of position and not lined up in the right slot a ton this year. And he gets a pass and you want to blame Baker ! LOL.

lol, man, you are REALLY trying hard to troll that stance, aren't you?

If the ball touches the receivers hands or comes directly into their body, it should be a catch... especially if you want to be considered as supposedly having some of the best hands in the business.

A receiver that is allegedly that good would catch it even from a crappy QB like Bridgewater or Manziel. Any receiver that can't, well, they're definitely NOT "HOFer" material.

No, he's trolling and seeing how many he can get to bite.

How can you say?
"criticizing the hands of one of the receivers with best hands in the business, that should tell you something. You really have to be a bad QB for OBJ to drop it..."

That makes no sense... ball is thrown to a receiver and hits him in the hands, said receiver should catch the ball, blaming Baker for OBJ dropping a ball by saying he is the worse quarterback in the league, now you are reaching.

and then you went on to say:
"Its also normal for a receiver that has 14 yds average per reception in his career to have a higher number of drops.

Sure when you pair OBJ with a dink donk QB,can't throw outside the numbers to save his life, its not going to work well...

Again you are reaching... you cant say in one quote Baker is a dink donk QB and than go on to say a receiver having 14 yards a reception.... 14 yards per reception is quite decent that wouldn't happen with a dink donk QB.

Sometimes I wonder what games people are watching.... OBJ is still on pace for over 1000 yards this year (needs only 90 yards in two games) and Jarvis already has over 1000 at 1018.... when was the last time we had 2 receivers top 1000 yards in the same season? It was 2007 btw.

Just my 2 cents.

Here's a follow-up question

Will whomever they select
A) work out?
B) be a complete disaster?

I'm voting for B.

I think we should give Freddie more time. I don't think Monken and he were a good fit. Maybe they can work it out and grind off the rough edges/round the square peg, maybe not. Some stability at the top might be nice. Even though Hue was here for awhile, I'm not sure I'd use stability to describe his reign. He was kind of mercurial.

I wonder if we could entice Jay Gruden to replace Monken? His system might be a better fit for what we had working here last season. He has some ties to northern Ohio, having been born in Tiffin.

I think anyone new would also have to try to cobble together a staff and might end up with similar fit issues.

Addendum: One of the problems with the Kitchens hiring, I think, is that he really hadn't been looking for a HC job. I don't think he had spent a ton of time considering the staff he would want to put together. He'd just been a position coach. He may have had some vague ideas about how he would do things if he was in charge, but I'm thinking he didn't have names of potential underlings worked out.

It kind of looks like he was given a list by someone (Dorsey?) to choose from after he had the job. His ideal candidates may not have been available (or on the list.)

He'd been used to focusing on his room's players. Now he's got to look at the coaches who are looking at all the players. It's a big adjustment.

Still, I think he has some good inherent characteristics. Consistency and ability to relate to players are important. He might just need some schooling/seasoning on the organizational management side of things which he'd never previously really had to worry about.

His lack of experience in those areas should have been obvious when he was hired. To fire him already seems hasty.

He needs to develop fast. This off-season could be make or break as during the season isn't a great time to worry the organizational side of the job as opposed to the more directly football stuff.

If he doesn't show improvement next year now that he knows what he needs to improve and has time to do it, that's when firing could better be justified.

I really don't disagree that Monken is a bad fit because our personnel, especially along the OL is not suited for an air raid offense.

Yet at the same time it was Freddie who chose his coaching staff so it appears the system Monkin put in place is the preferred system Freddie wanted to run.

Baker Mayfield flourished in the Air Raid offense in Oklahoma, so it made sense at the time...

OL don't float balls and fail to see open receivers, so cut with that excuse... NO OL in the league can give that much time to a QB

j/c...

Never a good sign for the future of the coaching staff when they are out pleading their case to the media about the positives they've done this year. Last week it was Freddie.

I think they all know they're gone.

What question was he responding to?

Oh my aren't we the sensitive one today. You just can't see that there are more than one reason that the air raid isn't a good fit here. You simply wish to focus on Baker and ignore other reasons.

The OL is one reason. The air raid depends on your OL giving your QB enough time for long pass plays to develop. We don't have the OT's to do that.

So yes, the OL is ONE reason.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled agenda.....

I recommend reading The Packer Way. I know Eo has read it.

In that very book they discuss how the entire Packer organization was complacent with the 7-9 record because it was seen as improvement.

Ron Wolf was hired as GM and he couldn't believe what he was hearing. The organization was content with the status quo. No one there had the urgency to win.

We should have never been 0-16, but using the excuse that we were and how much better 6-8 is now is complacency. We probably should redo the entire organization if this is the thinking.

The Patriots don't think like this. The Steelers don't think like this. The Ravens don't think like this. There's a reason why these franchises continue to win and we don't.

It was this line of thinking that Wolf eliminated in Green Bay and the franchise started winning.

I still can't believe he actually said this. This is grounds for removal, period. Embarrassing.

Absolutely. It's pretty lame. They know they're gone.

Oy vay. I just want the coaches to stop talking. I'm embarrassed for them.

Someone let Freddie know it's week 16.

I actually like Priefer and think he's done a good job.

I hope the next coach retains him.

Eh, we rank 17th in STs. He looks great b/c Amos was so bad. He's replaceable.

Also, hard pass on someone with this mentality.

The FIRST thing you learn during your FIRST year of organized football...

McCarthy or Rivera or Bust.

Who is this Bust guy you speak of?

Dolly Parton's husband.

Wolf's 1st 3 seasons in Green Bay were 9-7, 9-7, 9-7. An Improvement from 7-9 ........ but hardly #1 seed records. They did make the playoffs in 2 of those seasons, losing in the Divisional round both times. It wasn't until year 4 that they went 11-5, and then the next 2 going 13-3, with a Super Bowl win in there.

Bear in mind that they also hit the jackpot with Favre.

I will say this .... I think that this team needs a few players who have been on winning teams, to show the other guys just how to prepare to get to that level.

Arians is a good coach. He was 49-30-1 as head coach of the Cardinals, and that was with late-career Carson Palmer as his best QB. I remember Drew Stanton and Blaine Gabbert getting some time in a well.

We ignored his pleas to become the Browns head coach and hired his old running backs coach instead.

I'm not saying he is the guy we should have hired. That would be a little bit too much of revisionist history for my liking... but couldn't we have at least given him an interview?

Nah, if we weren’t going with Gregg, arians should’ve been the hire.

The "idea"of Arians sounds great in theory. But if you're looking for a long term solution to build around he was not the solution. When you combine his health and his age he would not have been a logical answer.

I understand to this point it doesn't look like we found it, but not hiring an aging coach with big time health concerns was quite understandable to me.

Device, I do not get that at all from what priefer said. He is saying look where we came from. You might not think we deserved 0-16 but I think we deserved every stinking loss. All 31 over two years. He is not satisfied and 6-8 is not our goal. But as Dorsey said this is a process and we are just in year two.

Remember the old definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Well, we have hired and fired multiple coaches, gms, presidents etc for nigh on two decades. What do we have to show for it. 20 years of futility. It is time we stay the course and build this program.

Well, if you won't say it, then I will.

Arians should've been the hire. His age/health was almost a bonus. Have Arians come in and get the party started and then turn it over to Kitchens (who we would've 'promoted' to full-time OC an heir apparent).

I'm usually all about challenging revisionist history and NOT using hindsight to justify/argue a previous decision, but I don't feel even a little bit bad about it here.

He volunteered to have a comprehensive health screen done as one of the conditions to be hired by the Bucs. I'm sure he would have done the same for the Browns.

Of course, other things can pop up. I get that. However, he even had a succession plan in place as he would have kept Freddie onboard as offensive coordinator, which was really the only promotion for Freddie that made sense at the time. The idea was to give him more time to develop and improve as a coach and he'd maybe someday take over.

or not. You never know. Maybe we'd find out he was just an OC and hire somebody else in due time. But in the short term you focus on winning, building a better culture with discipline, structure, etc.

I never expected the Browns to hire him as head coach but I do wonder why he was never even taken seriously enough to interview. Too big of a name and too strong of opinions, perhaps?

You make good points although I am not trying to hold anything back.

My thoughts at the time were along the lines of Freddie being named offensive coordinator was a fair and reasonable promotion.

As far as the head coaching search, I don't think fans can really add much because we are not part of the interview process. I think you really have to look at a coach's intelligence, work ethic, character/leadership/etc. and this isn't always reflected in X coach led the league in Y stat.

I do think Arians should have at least been part of the interview process, at the very least. If you say he should have been hired, well it's hard to argue that. The fact that the Bucs have a better record than the Browns this late in the season is astounding.

I think it is possible Dorsey is furious at Freddie and wants him out. Dorsey put together a super talented roster and gave Freddie the keys. Freddie was incompetent by any measure, and he has done such a poor job it has people questioning Dorsey.
I am not sure Dorsey is going to defend him.

The best laid plans, and all that. In military campaigns the plan is sold as put in place until contact with the enemy in real time. Then it is about adjusting and winning. We haven't done either well. Our game planning is suspect IMO. Scripted goes well then off the rails when FK takes it. Behind the sticks for two, force a bad pass, overthrown too often, and Hammer Time. Defense usually folds.

The weekly repeat is hard to take. Can't imagine this steamy product is what Dorsey wanted.

Alternate coaches or change in duties would seem solid activities to me.

I don't see the problem with him saying that stuff. It's pretty spot-on, actually, so where's the issue?