BEREA, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Joel Bitonio has seen it all in his six years with the Browns.
Well, almost everything.
Bitonio is playing for his third head coach and might be playing for a fourth in 2020 depending on the fate of Freddie Kitchens.
“It's one of those things where you want to play well enough in a season where no one has to get fired,” Bitonio said Friday. “It's obviously one of those things where it's like, 'Hey, we did good enough. We made the playoffs or we did something well where the coaches have the same thing.
“I think every year I've been here there's been some sort of rumblings of firing a coach.”
Bitonio survived the worst three-year stretch in NFL history – 4-44 that included a 1-15 and 0-16 in back-to-back years. The Browns at one point went 4-50-1 over a 55-game stretch that spanned the end of the 2014 season through the first two weeks of 2018.
But the one thing Bitonio has not seen in Cleveland: winning. Or the playoffs.
And it’s getting to him.
“I just know I’ve been here for six years now and I want to start winning,” Bitonio said.
Bitonio is as professional as they come – on and off the field – so when he speaks, everyone listens, and they should.
“It's getting that time where it's like we really need to take a big step I think after this year,” Bitonio, a two-time winner of the Dino Lucarelli Good Guy award, said. “It's like put up or shut up. We've had the chance now to get used to each other. Now it's a big offseason of, ‘Hey, what are we going to do to really take that next step? What is each individual guy going to do to take that next step?’”
After the acquisition of Odell Beckham Jr. in March, the belief was that the Browns had finally arrived. The blockbuster trade with the New York Giants orchestrated by general manager John Dorsey, who turned over the roster in 18 short months, also included Pro Bowl defensive end Olivier Vernon and appeared to signal a new era of football was about to begin in Cleveland.
Once the season started the Browns were, well, still the Browns.
After starting 2-6, they were a flop and one of the biggest disappointments in the league.
Three November wins got them back in the playoff conversation and the team managed to stay mathematically alive until the Ravens eliminated them last week.
“Fans want results, and people want results,” Bitonio said. “It's a results-based business and you see people have success. We need to have that, and it's tough. Obviously, I wish we'd played better and put ourselves in a better position so we didn't have to talk about it.”
Bitonio credits Kitchens with keeping the team together.
He’s seen seasons fall apart, and the wheels completely come off the wagon, but somehow things did not go from bad to worse this year.
“There was a real chance where it could go real bad real fast if you don’t win a few games in a row and [Kitchens] made sure to keep us on the right path,” Bitonio said.
From Bitonio’s perspective, regardless if Kitchens stays or goes, something is still missing with the Browns. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know what that is.
“It’s something we need to look at as an organization, like what’s the root cause of these issues,” Bitonio said. “There has to be something where you can’t be just like, ‘Alright we’re going to go into next year and do the same thing,’ because it obviously didn’t work [this year].
“Like, are we just going to play better? So, there’s something that needs to be said. Are we going to look at the game plan? Are we going to look at the passing game? Are we going to look at the running game? Are we going to look at the defense? There’s something that needs to be fixed and you don’t know where it’s from.”
Despite the disappointment of a 17th straight playoff-less season, there are a few positives to be found from 2019, no matter how painful of a picture they paint of a franchise that has been in disrepair since returning to the league in 1999.
Baker Mayfield will be the first quarterback in 18 years, and only the second in the expansion era, to start all 16 games.
Sadly, that’s an achievement, and progress.
A win Sunday in Cincinnati would give them seven or more victories in back-to-back years for the first time since 2001-2002 when they finished 7-9 and 9-7 respectively.
Again, progress.
Nick Chubb is about to win the NFL rushing title, the first Browns running back to achieve the feat in 51 years. Leroy Kelly did it in 1968.
More progress.
Although they are just two years removed from 0-16, 1-31 and 4-44, progress just isn’t coming fast enough. Progress still means 12 straight losing seasons and 19 in the last 21.
“I think from our perspective, obviously, it's moving slower than we wanted,” Bitonio said. “We wanted to be fighting for the division or fighting for the playoffs this year, obviously, and fell short.”
Bitonio is tired of falling short, and he knows he’s not the only one.
