Browns' Real Problems Run So Much Deeper Than Freddie Kitchens

The Cleveland Browns remain a total disaster after firing Freddie Kitchens following a 6-10 finish to the 2019 season.

The team entered the year with great expectations, but now, Kitchens is departing after one year of a job he was never qualified to hold in the first place. So, who is to blame here? Because what ails this franchise goes far, far beyond the man who held the head coaching job for fewer than 12 whole months.

There's a mountain of evidence to suggest that the problems start at the top with owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam. They bought the team in 2012 and have fired a coach nearly every season. Mike Pettine, however, got two years, while Hue Jackson got slightly more than that despite starting out 1-31.

Kitchens now joins Pat Shurmur and Rob Chudzinski fired after one year working for the Haslams. The issues here are quite obviously systemic, period.

The ownership can never stick to a plan. That became clear when Sashi Brown was fired as GM in 2017 after the team lost too many games despite the fact that he made it clear his plan was a total rebuild. That blueprint was never able to develop; John Dorsey was then brought in to execute a totally different strategy.

It's worth noting, however, that Dorsey wasn't allowed to pick his own coach, and Hue Jackson was every bit of a lame duck at the start of 2018. Kitchens was Dorsey's first hire, but now he has been fired, the process has to start all over again.

Dorsey himself presents a separate issue. He has shown the ability to gather talented players, but the Browns never looked like an actual team all season long. He rushed the head coaching search as well, hiring someone with no head coaching experience at any level of football. Kitchens faced an impossible task with so many personalities on the team, and management should have seen those problems from a mile away.

The Haslams aren't going anywhere, so the only hope Browns fans could have is for Dorsey to hire the right guy and for the team to come together in 2020 with a clean slate. Unfortunately, the faithful in The Land have been hoping for this similar scenario since 1999, and not much has changed. Try blaming that all on Freddie Kitchens if you like. But you'd be wrong.