It wasn't all the fault of Freddie Kitchens, although, for the on-field failures, it was his decisions in play-calling and personnel that contributed most to the 6-10 record.
I want to make this clear before we start- this isn't a clear the decks' defense for Freddie Kitchens, as I believe that he did a poor job of running the team and I've written so all season, but blame, much like a good Goober Grape sandwich, can be easily spread around.
That said, let's pull the knife out and start spreading.
I've been hitting Freddie Kitchens during game recaps all season, but to briefly recap- mismanaging clock, ridiculous decisions such as committing intentional penalties, coddling Baker Mayfield to the point of a parent giving in to a petulant child, and being unable to gain the respect of many of his players.
All of those are true, but what you wonder is this- With hindsight, how did Freddie Kitchens get this job to begin with?
Yes, the limited experience with play calling in 2018 was exciting, but his only coordinator experience was during those games and his insistence on continuing to call plays even as the head coach strained a rope that was tenuous in doing his job as the head coach, let alone adding the burden of calling plays.
Why did the Browns, whether the decision-maker was Jimmy Haslam or John Dorsey, allow an inexperienced coach to carry that weight?
That alone considering the players involved might have set Kitchens up to fail before he started out of the blocks.
For this exercise, John Dorsey, who was already gambling on Kitchens to start with, gets his share of the blame for the 2019 woes when he didn't address the tackle positions and thought the Browns could get through the season with Greg Robinson and Chris Hubbard at tackle and Justin McCray as a swingman backup.
McCray is a decent enough guard, but he is way undersized at tackle and he's not an emergency tackle, he's the top backup!
I haven't seen a tackle as bad as Chris Hubbard as a regular starter going back to the revolving door that was John St.Clair in the Eric Mangini years and Robinson isn't a ton better.
I realize that you cannot get every issue fixed right away, but combining those two with the trade of the very solid Kevin Zeitler meant the Browns were going to have real issues protecting Baker Mayfield.
I didn't have a problem getting Olivier Vernon for Zeitler and few people count on trading for a player and having him injured most of the season, but above almost anything, the inability to shore up the offensive line (which seemed to basically be- wait to the trading deadline and overwhelm the Redskins for tackle Trent Williams) affected almost all of the problems on the offensive side.
Losing Vernon for most of the year and the suspension of Myles Garrett turned a top-five level pass rush into one better suited for "Five Mississippi" and struggled even getting near the passer, wasn't Dorsey's fault, but his trade with the Giants affected both lines.
Dorsey also can be blamed for not giving Kitchens an experienced staff member that could have helped him with the head coaching items that all first-timers need to learn to do well.
Steve Wilks was the Cardinals head coach in 2018, but the Cardinals look at his year as disastrously as the Browns do this year, so he wasn't going to be much help.
Dorsey also made a major mistake with Baker Mayfield when he didn't add a veteran quarterback when Drew Stanton was placed on IR in September and only carried AAF standout and Baker buddy Garrett Gilbert at quarterback.
Mayfield didn't have anyone to lean on, to learn from when he acted poorly, other than Gilbert, which only continued the feeling that the locker room was filled with members of Baker's frat house rather than contributors or at least people that kept him grounded.
And there's Baker.
While Mayfield played very well at times as a rookie, he rarely approached that form in year two and for the "Pied Piper" and "Hee Hee" stories that John Dorsey liked to tell, he didn't seem to be loved in the locker room either.
Mayfield jabbed at Duke Johnson before he was traded to Houston, which he was chastised for from teammates, would blame the Browns medical staff in a press conference for not doing the right thing for Odell Beckham's sports hernia injury (to be fair, Mayfield didn't express it well, but I think he was trying to give Beckham cover for playing through injury), and would blame the "entire organization" for the 6-10 season after the Bengals defeat.
Combined with a propensity for interceptions and an inability to hit his receivers in stride due to a large number of his passes being high with a lower than expected completion rate, you have to at least consider that Baker Mayfield may not be the "guy" at quarterback.
Depending on the coach that is hired, Mayfield may be able to clean up mechanical issues and get better chemistry with Odell Beckham, but that will take far more dedication than he apparently put in over the last off-season.
It's not all on Baker Mayfield for the Browns lousy season, but he deserves a solid share as well.
Don't forget about Jimmy Haslam either.
Haslem, who changes coaches, front office personnel, and advisors as most people change television channels, didn't give John Dorsey a chance to recover from his poor choice of Freddie Kitchens, has decided to return power in the organization to Paul DePodesta, who was a part of the Sashi Brown disaster, doesn't even live in Cleveland, and his only selling point is not wanting Freddie Kitchens, and his choice of committee to select the new head coach and general manager is limited at best and ridiculous at worst.
The replacements for Kitchens and Dorsey will be decided by a committee of Jimmy Haslam, his wife Dee (Known best for her announcement that the awful uniforms were going to be great and popular), Haslam's son-in-law JW Johnson, DePodesta, and Chris Cooper who runs the salary cap department for the team- not a football person in the bunch.
Haslam, who listens to whoever he has talked to most recently, has created a culture that "needs to be changed" with every firing and never seems to get it right, flips back and forth between the numbers guys and the football guys and builds foundations with neither.
I'm not totally an "analytics" guy, but part of being a fan of any sport is embracing the statistics that are part of that experience and teams should be willing to look at any data that can prove to help evaluate talent, gain enlightenment in play-calling, when to go for two, when to try the long field goal and when to punt, etc.
All of those things can be helpful and putting your head underwater and pretending that they aren't a part of building a team, is way "old school" even for a guy like me!
However, using numbers as the be-all and end-all for your organizational in evaluating talent is a method doomed to fail.
Helpful?
Absolutely.
Should it be most of your consideration when you are deciding who to draft and who to sign through free agency?
Not at all.
Nothing, Allow me to repeat NOTHING should be more valued than your personnel department's evaluations of players from attending games, to breaking down film and in the case of college scouting, traveling to schools for workouts, but even more important is talking to the persons at the prospect's university.
And not only coaches, talk to the guys in the building, talk to teammates, talk to the support people that work with and see the prospect every day as well.
Talking to people that aren't always spoken to can mine huge information and give you data beyond numbers about a prospect's work habits, background, is he motivated for an outside reason, etc.
Allow me to offer an example of this from my personal perspective.
In the 2014 draft that saw Ray Farmer botch two number one picks, one of those picks was Justin Gilbert a cornerback from Oklahoma State, who the Browns traded up to obtain (after initially trading down from the 4th spot in a trade with Buffalo).
Going into that draft, Gilbert was my favorite cornerback in the draft and I watched that draft with my oldest friend, Greg, who always asks me for my evaluations before the draft.
I put a lot of work into my draft analysis (although not nearly as much as the guys that write books)
and Greg's always respected that through the years.
When the Browns picked Gilbert, I was ecstatic because I loved what I watched on video and I liked his size and speed.
Gilbert seemed to have everything that it would take to be a top-notch cornerback for a long time, but Gilbert was a flop and after two bad seasons with the Browns, Cleveland shuffled him off to the Steelers (Imagine trading with the Steelers, if they thought he had a chance to turn his career around) for a sixth-rounder.
Gilbert would play that season in Pittsburgh and then was out of football.
Greg always likes to remind me about Justin Gilbert and he's right that I liked his tape, but what doomed Gilbert were things that I couldn't have known and the Browns should have,
What did the Browns know that I didn't or what should they have known that I did not?
They should have done their diligence and asked those questions with the access that they have and most draft writers do not.
I didn't know Justin Gilbert didn't like to get out of bed or show up on time for meetings and had difficulties learning systems that depended on more than athletic ability- but the Browns should have and yet when Gilbert was drafted, he stated that he never even talked to the Browns.
And that is what worries me most about the numbers crunchers- that they are so reliant on their portion of evaluating and building a winning roster that other departments that are equally important will be either ignored or taken with less value than they deserve.
When you look at the two drafts that Sashi Brown and Paul DePodesta were in charge of the draft board, it appears to be clearly numbers-driven and lacks results.
The 2016 draft was filled with busts like wide receiver Corey Coleman in the first round (Taken over Ohio State's Michael Thomas, who ranks with the best receivers in the league), a few unspectacular seasons from Emmanuel Ogbah, before Ogbah was traded to Kansas City in 2019, three third-rounders, two of which are out of football (Cody Kessler and Shon Coleman) and the other was cut and has played well for Tampa (Carl Nassib).
Only two players from that draft are with the Browns- 4th rounder Joe Schobert and 5th rounder Rashard Higgins, neither of whom is a guarantee to remain with the Browns next season with both becoming free agents.
The 2017 draft hit with Myles Garrett at the top of the draft, but their other two first-rounders were disappointing in safety Jabrill Peppers, who was included in the Odell Beckham trade with the Giants, and tight end David Njoku, who by the season's end wasn't even being activated for games.
Of the other seven draftees from the 17 draft, only third-rounder Larry Ogunjobi remains with the Browns and is a solid starter.
I started this by saying the blame could be spread around to many people and all of that rings true.
However, it starts at the top and the Haslam family has not listened to the right people, has not hired many of the right people, and they haven't listened to them when they have hired good employees.
There is blame to be assigned to John Dorsey, Freddie Kitchens, Paul DePodesta, Sashi Brown, Baker Mayfield, and others.
However, no one deserves more blame than James Arthur Haslam III and his wife Dee.
Their questionable decisions, a lack of a solid organizational chart, their impatience, and a desire to listen to too many people has led to this.
The Haslams deserve most of the blame.
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