CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – As frustrated fans filed out of FirstEnergy Stadium midway through the fourth quarter, chants of “fire Freddie” could be heard from the stands and the exit ramps.
When Kitchens was hired in January there was an understanding there would be growing pains, but not like this.
Every week Kitchens continues to look like someone who has never been a head coach before, and the tradition continued in a 31-15 loss to the Ravens.
Kitchens’ call for passes on three consecutive downs after the Ravens took a 7-6 lead with 1:18 on the clock at the start of the possession only to end up punting and giving Baltimore the ball back with 0:55 remaining was the final straw that broke the Browns' back Sunday.
“Our goal on offense is to score points,” quarterback Baker Mayfield said. “If one of those plays happens, nobody is asking questions. It didn’t go the way as well as planned.”
The Ravens didn’t have any timeouts and all Kitchens had to do was run one time on third-and-10 at their own 25 with 1:07 remaining to bleed a good 30 seconds of time off the clock.
“I called one I thought that we could have potential to run after catch, and it got knocked down,” Kitchens said. “If I had to do it over again, I would not do it, but I do not have it to do over again because of the result. You can’t always coach off results. I am trying to move the ball.”
Mayfield’s pass was batted down and the Ravens had plenty of time to add to their lead.
“There are all kind of analytics and statistics about the team who scores before half and then gets the ball back,” receiver Odell Beckham Jr. said. “They kind of doubled up on us.”
Baltimore, who was getting the ball to start the second half too, marched down the field in the blink of an eye for a 14-6 halftime lead and then took 7:36 off the third quarter clock to begin the second half to go up 21-6.
Game over.
“I felt like we had them up on the ropes when we were up 6-0 going into halftime and we just blinked and they were up 14-6 going into halftime,” safety Damarious Randall said. “You just can’t give good teams like that opportunities to score.”
Even more bizarre, with less than three minutes on the clock, up 6-0 and facing a third-and-1 from their own 28, Kitchens called for a halfback pass that the Ravens promptly blew up for a loss of 8.
“We just have to block it up right,” Mayfield said. “That is a situation right there where we are thinking about going for it if he does throw the ball and it is incomplete. It is one of those where since it didn’t work, everybody is mad, and if it worked, we are pure geniuses.”
The Browns ended up punting and it took Baltimore two plays to take the lead for good.
“It was an option pass and I should not have called it,” Kitchens said. “It is one of those plays you try to call, and you try to create some momentum. If it does not happen, you come back and get it on fourth-and-1, and we just lost some yardage.”
It buried the Browns instead.
Once again, the simplest of coaching and clock management skills befuddled Kitchens and it cost the Browns, who gave up 14 points in less than two minutes to a team with no timeouts.
“They scored two times within [two] minutes, which is tough,” receiver Jarvis Landry said.
In the first quarter the Browns looked ready to go for it on a fourth-and-5 from the Baltimore 47, but too many players were on the field and too much confusion forced a timeout to be taken.
Kitchens then sent the punting unit onto the field.
In an HBO documentary featuring him and Nick Saban, Bill Belichick said, “Good players can’t overcome bad coaching.”
The Browns couldn’t overcome Kitchens Sunday, or all season for that matter, and so a season filled with hope and expectations has been flushed down the drain with Kitchens’ help.
