Kitchens will remain play-caller vs. Bengals
Browns offensive coordinator Monken won’t get a crack at it.
Browns offensive coordinator Todd Monken sat upstairs in the coaching booth all season, staying in his lane while Freddie Kitchens called the plays.
But Kitchens has no plans to let Monken take a crack at it during the season finale Sunday in Cincinnati, even though the Browns are 6-9 and going nowhere.
“We’re going to always evaluate and do the best thing and the thing that gives us the best chance to win,’’ Kitchens said. “Todd’s done a good job all year of keeping us on course. Todd would do an excellent job calling the plays. I just feel more comfortable doing it right now. Nothing against Todd.”
Monken, asked if it’s even been discussed this week, said, “no.’’
But it has to have beena tough season for Monken, watching the Browns offense underachieve and not being able to do anything about it on game day. Kitchens has never considered turning the play calling over to him, despite the fact
the offense has struggled to score most ofthe seasonand Baker Mayfield has tumbled to the bottom of the NFL in several key categories.
During Sunday’s 31-15 loss to the Ravens, Kitchens botched the final 2:09 of the first half, calling a halfback option pass by Kareem Hunt on third and 1 that lost 8 yards and
led to the Ravens’ first touchdown of the game, a 39-yard TD pass from Lamar Jackson to tight end Mark Andrew with 1:18 left in the half.
Kitchens then called three straight pass plays, all of which were broken up by safety Chuck Clark. The absence of a clock-eating running play, especially on third down, gave Jackson 55 seconds in which to work his magic, and he marched the Ravens 75 yards in 7 plays, capped by a 14-yard TD pass that made it 14-6 with 9 seconds left in the half. They stormed back out in the second half with another TD that put the game away.
“Disappointing, I think, is the best way of putting it,’’ said Monken. “At one point, just talking in generalities, you’re up 6-0. You have really controlled the game as a team. The defense has played really well. We haven’t turned it over. We haven’t played as well as we would like on offense. We had some opportunities that we did not take advantage of, but the interesting thing is when we had the ball up 6-0, we had three snaps and then it was 21-6 and right there was really where the game got away from us.
“There is no way around it. It does not mean we still did not have opportunities – we did – but that was a tough pill to swallow.”
Monken, who interviewed for head coaching jobs last offseason, never got a chance to try his hand at the play calling here despite running the No. 1 passing game in the NFL last season with the Bucs — an average of 320.3 yards per game.
Their running game was ranked 29th, and their offense was third overall. In seven games, the Bucs rolled up 450 yards more.
Monken took over the Bucs’ play-calling duties from coach Dirk Koetter last season and put up 48 points in his first game, with quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick throwing for more than 400 yards and four TDs. In his first three games, Fitzpatrick passed for at least 400 yards and three TDs, and was NFL Offensive Player of the Week in weeks one and two. Koetter took the play-calling duties back against the Redskins, and the Bucs scored three points in a loss.
He went back to Monken the rest of the way, and the Bucs set club records in total yards, passing yards and passing TDs. They finished 5-11, however, and the staff was fired, making Monken available for the Browns job.