NFL Insider Claims Browns Unlikely to Keep Freddie Kitchens Next Season if Losing Continues

It truly feels like we are eons away from the preseason. You know, the one in which the Cleveland Browns were gaining hype after what seemed like each individual time Baker Mayfield or Odell Beckham Jr. took the podium to preview the 2019 campaign.

To say, however, that the team hasn't lived up to their billing would precisely describe their current position, as they sit at 2-4 after six weeks, a full two games back of the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC North.

Well, if they continue to fall short of expectations, NFL insider John Clayton adamantly believes that head coach Freddie Kitchens could be fired as soon as the 2019 campaign ends. Clayton even asserts that murmurs were surfacing of Kitchens being canned after the Browns' loss to the Seahawks at home last weekend.

.@JohnClaytonNFL actually said on @937theFan: "The way it's heading there's no way you're going to have (Kitchens) back next year. In fact, there were some rumors when I was in the Browns pregame, that he could've gotten fired after this game, b/c they're going to be sitting 2-5"
— Keith Britton (@KeithBritton86) October 16, 2019

This really shouldn't come as a surprise, even though this is Kitchens' first season at the helm. Heck, with Jimmy Haslam as the team owner, this news should have almost been expected.

The Browns hired Kitchens because they thought that he would be able to replicate the success he personified as the team's offensive coordinator just a season ago.

The reality is, however, that Baker Mayfield hasn't shown real growth. Cleveland, despite sporting an offense that features dynamic weapons like OBJ, Nick Chubb, and Jarvis Landry, currently sits at 20th in the NFL in terms of points scored per game.

That's just not good enough.

Freddie Kitchens wouldn't run Nick Chubb at the end of the first half and use timeouts because he thought the #Browns could score on a TD pass, use 3 timeouts, get the ball back & score again in 96 seconds. Let that sink in. Instead of going up 27-12, it was a 20-18 game at half
— Daryl Ruiter (@RuiterWrongFAN) October 14, 2019

Couple that with Kitchens' poor display of basic head coaching and game management techniques with each passing week, and it absolutely makes sense that the organization's braintrust is already feeling some doubts about his future.

We'll give him the rest of the season to right the ship, but based on the available evidence, the first-year head coach looks in over his head on the sidelines.