Players gathered in Berea Monday morning to clean out their lockers, hours after head coach Freddie Kitchens was fired following a 6-10 finish marking the 16th time in 21 years the Browns lost at least that many in a season.
“You never want to see a coach get fired,” guard Joel Bitonio, who will play next season for his fourth coach in seven years, said. “That is his livelihood. That is his job, and you are going to lose a bunch of other coaches in the process. Management thought it was best to move in a new direction.
“I think the goal for the team is, how we are going to win more games next year? That is all there is to it. From a player’s perspective, from a new coaches’ perspective and from a team perspective, what can we do to win more games? It is one of those things when you are not playing well, things like that happen.”
So, what went so wrong or a team that had a 1,400 yard rusher and two 1,000 yard receivers?
“I think the biggest things a lot of times in those games, we this year relied on plays and not players as much, especially from the offensive side of the ball,” receiver Jarvis Landry said.
The five-time Pro Bowl receiver explained further.
“There’s just opportunities in games where I know on the outside that we could’ve taken advantage of teams’ weaknesses, and that we didn’t,” Landry said. “We just didn’t really know what the plan was, or what we were trying to do or I don’t think we ever really found our identity.”
Landry pointed to a lack of leadership as a primary reason for the lack of cohesion on the field.
“I just think that there are always times in seasons where things happen, guys get hurt, off-the-field issues, a bunch of different things happen,” Landry said. “In crucial points in the game, breaking points of the game, being able to hold your composure, being able to talk to each other, treat everybody with respect. I just think at times there was a lack thereof.”
Leadership, and the lack of it, this past season, was a common theme from players in recent days while the season came crashing down in spectacular fashion.
It is a void that players expect to have filled by Kitchens’ replacement.
“We need a guy that’s an exceptional leader, as the Haslams have already said, a guy who knows football and can win games,” linebacker Christian Kirksey said.
Bitonio and Kirksey were members of the same draft class in 2014, and they’ve both endured the pain of losing and the change that has come with it together, yet both remain the eternal optimists.
“We’re moving in the right direction in my opinion,” Kirksey said. “I’ve been on six different teams in Cleveland and this is by far the most talented that I’ve been on here. I think we’re making the proper steps. We lost some close ballgames that could have went a different way.
“We’ve got to get over those humps and win close games and try to find a way to get over that hump and try to win 10-plus games. I think we have the guys in the locker room to do it.”
Talent is only half the battle, as this season proved. At least the Browns finally have it. Now they need to find a coach to take advantage of it.
“This may have been the most talent you’ve seen in one room for this amount of time and we still have more time,” Landry said. “You don’t want to lose that. You want to take advantage of that when you have it.”
“I’ll know Friday about the future of potential surgery and things like that,” Landry said. “We’re sending the pictures to a specialist right now. We’ll know something back after the holidays.”
Surgery is a last resort for Landry, who said he played at “75-80%” this season, because of the recovery time required.
“For right now, it would be six to eight months,” Landry said.
Despite the injury, Landry led the team with 83 catches, 1,174 yards and six touchdowns. He was also named to his fifth Pro Bowl in six years.
“Injury’s going fine, rehab is going fine, I’ll be back out,” Kirksey said.
With two years and $18 million left on his contract, Kirksey isn’t worried about what 2020 holds even with more changes this offseason likely.
“Naw. I let everything take care of itself,” Kirksey said. “As long as I’m doing my part, doing all I can do to be the best player I can be, it will all work out for itself. You can’t be worried about tomorrow, worried about the past, take care of the now.”