On Coaching, Management and Ownership, the Collective Failure of the 2019 Cleveland Browns

Coming into the 2019 season, rookie head coach Freddie Kitchens faced substantial skepticism about his ability to handle the job, manage the personalities and lead the Cleveland Browns. The romantic notion of the rookie head coach learning on the job looked great nine plays into the season when the Browns went right down the field scoring almost effortlessly against the Tennessee Titans. 18 penalties, 3 turnovers and a 30 point deficit later, the honeymoon was over and the week to week evaluation of Kitchens began.

Kitchens wasn't put into a fair situation and he knew it. He accepted it, tried to use it as a rallying cry for the team amid the growing hype and expectations. The reality with the Browns, trying to take advantage of a rookie quarterback coming off of a tremendous season, having one of the brightest defensive stars in the league, both on rookie contracts, it provided this window for the team to make a serious push for the Super Bowl. At 6-8 and with any number of questions facing this team, it's becoming more difficult to envision how that happens.

The one question I wanted to be able to answer with Kitchens by the end of this season was whether or not I believe Kitchens is capable of leading this team to a Super Bowl. Though there are two games left, it's difficult to imagine coming to any other conclusion than no. Coming off of this loss to the Arizona Cardinals, the Browns now turn their attention to facing the 12-2 Baltimore Ravens.

It is remarkable to remember that this team, obviously healthier and with Myles Garrett not suspended, didn't just beat the Ravens, handing them one of their two losses this year. They dominated them. In a divisional matchup. On the road. The signature win of the 2019 season, the biggest indictment for Kitchens may be how much worse the Browns feel as they approach the end of this season compared to the Ravens, who have transformed themselves into an NFL juggernaut, winning 10 in a row with a league leading 472 points scored and a +215 scoring differential, which is 54 points higher than the next best team.

Contrasting the Browns and the Pittsburgh Steelers, who have suffered a significant number of losses themselves in terms of players, losing Ben Roethlisberger and Stephon Tuitt for the season, and players like Juju Smith-Schuster and James Conner for significant stretches of the season, the team has over-performed.

A team that was left for dead, expected to bottom out while not controlling their own first round pick, the Steelers have fought their way to an 8-6 record. They aren't likely to make the playoffs, but there are people making an argument for Mike Tomlin to win Coach of the Year based on how that team has banded together and responded to the adversity, refusing to use it as an excuse.

In fairness to Kitchens, he has never given excuses either, always putting the team's struggles on himself first and foremost. The problem for Kitchens is that the team plays like it has excuses, they play like a team more than happy to let Kitchens take the blame.
While Kitchens doesn't appear to be the team's answer at head coach, he's hardly the only one deserving of blame for what has gone wrong this season. The reports that management is behind him, which likely translates directly to general manager, John Dorsey, may simply be a situation where he's trying to stick up for the guy he chose to hire for the job, realizing that if Kitchens fails, he failed in hiring him. It's probably too much to hope for that it's an acknowledgement of his failings in building this team.

Beyond the obvious, such as missed draft picks or free agent signings that simply haven't worked, there are also questions about the direction and handling of the team. The Browns have character players, but the overall team doesn't. It really seems to have lost a resilience they had last season. Maybe Gregg Williams deserves far more credit for the job he did than he even got last year, but perhaps some of the players they moved in the offseason meant more to this team than just what they did or didn't do on the field.
I think character is something the front office needs to do more to address when it comes to assembling this team, but the larger question I have is how Dorsey treats players. In multiple circumstances in public, he's committed unforced errors, putting players and the team in awkward situations.

Randomly, he brought up David Njoku at the NFL Scouting Combine, criticizing his blocking. In a disastrous press conference trying to defend the signing of Kareem Hunt in light of his off field issues, he proceeded to suggest that Duke Johnson was expendable. Currently, his handling of Joe Schobert's pending free agency, not even communicating with his agent, is simply bizarre.

At some point, it's fair to ask if the way Dorsey deals with players on this roster is creating problems that shouldn't be there. Duke Johnson is gone and there are those who believe Njoku and Schobert soon will be. Even if they aren't, what is the message Dorsey is sending to the rest of the roster when he does these things? The main criticism of Kitchens when he wore the now infamous Pittsburgh Started It t-shirt ahead of the second game against the Pittsburgh Steelers was as the head coach, a featured representative of the team, anything that doesn't directly benefit the team shouldn't be done. Shouldn't that same standard apply to the GM?

The Browns defense was destroyed by the Cardinals on Sunday and it's fair to criticize coaching. It's also worth pointing out that the defense the Browns started the game with included Chad Thomas, Eli Ankou, Bryan Cox Jr., Mack Wilson, Greedy Williams, Sheldrick Redwine and a completely disinterested Damarious Randall. Injuries, suspensions, I understand. But these are the pieces Dorsey's front office gathered for the coaches to assemble a defense. Denzel Ward, Joe Schobert and Sheldon Richardson are good players, but they need more than that and again, Schobert's future in Cleveland is uncertain.

The bottom line is whoever is coaching this team or running the front office in 2020 has to do a better job than they did this year. Getting a good head coach would help quite a bit, but these other issues still exist and can hold this team back, which gets to ownership.
Beyond simply saying that ownership needs to be better, it's really difficult to criticize specific failings, because it can be difficult to know exactly what they actually doing in any given moment. There doesn't seem to be that obvious fax machine moment. Choosing Hue Jackson when the rest of the organization wanted Sean McDermott didn't happen here, but it's fair to question if the franchise is unified in their sense of purpose.

Ownership seemingly has been true to their word in taking a step back, allowing the people they have hired to run the team, which is how Dorsey got the amount of control he has. There are two questions I think ownership has to be be able to answer when it comes to informing their decision making.

Who do we want to be? Saying they want to win a Super Bowl is easy. It has to be much deeper, determining how that happens and what type of people it takes to get there at the top of the organization to the players in the locker room.
Is this helping us get there? In essence, when it comes to evaluating anything related to their franchise, if it's not furthering their effort to get to who they want to be, they must then determine how to get it so it does.

If they diligently enforce effective guard rails on themselves and the rest of the organization, it will have a profound impact on the overall professionalism of this team as well as do more to eliminate distractions and encourage winning. It's about details and ownership has to commit themselves to addressing them. Not only will it make the organization more effective, it should make working for the Browns more attractive to the best in the NFL and that is an issue that continues to haunt this franchise, which is why they may be hesitant to in firing Kitchens. They aren't convinced they can get someone better, which is the fundamental failing of this team.