The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Kitchens supports Hunt as person now
The Browns are hoping that at some point Kareem Hunt will do for them what he was doing for the Chiefs before football suddenly became secondary in his life. But that is not the primary concern for now.
Freddie Kitchens on Feb. 27 met with the media at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis for the first time as head coach of the Browns. He was asked about a variety of subjects, including Hunt, quarterback Baker Mayfield, left tackle Greg Robinson and wide receiver Breshad Perriman.
• On Hunt, whom the Browns signed on Feb. 9: Hunt led the NFL in rushing with 1,327 yards as a rookie with Kansas City in 2017. The Chiefs cut him on Nov. 30 the day a video surfaced of the former Willoughby South High School running back shoving and kicking a woman in a downtown Cleveland hotel hallway.
“I’ve talked to Kareem on several occasions,” Kitchens said.
“He’s very remorseful about what he’s done. Now it’s our job to move forward and support him and get him to a place as an individual and as a person to give him the opportunity, a second chance per se.
“The second chance is not now. He’s got a lot of work to do between now and that time the second chance comes. We’ll see how that goes. Right now we’re day to day and just trying to get him to offer him support where he needs to become a better person to get him eventually on the field. ... We’ll worry about the football stuff later. But right now we’re in the Kareem Hunt business of making him a better person.”
• Nick Chubb did not become the Browns starting running back until the seventh game of 2018, yet he just missed 1,000 yards. In fact, at one point he had 1,001 yards rushing. But he
lost five yards on his final carry of the season.
Kitchens does not expect Chubb to respond to the Hunt signing by wimping out.
“Nick Chubb’s our running back,” Kitchens said. “We’re always looking for good football players to come in and compete. We like competitive situations, and, of course, that’ll be a competitive situation. Nick Chubb’s not going to back down from any kind of competitive situation. That’s why Nick Chubb’s a great football player and a great Cleveland Brown.”
Hunt faces a likely suspension of between six and 12 games from the NFL.
• Mayfield set a record for rookie quarterbacks in 2018 by throwing 27 touchdown passes, and he’ll be even better in 2019 if Freddie Kitchens has anything to do with it.
“As far as how big a jump (Mayfield can make), I just want him to be a better player on April 1 than he was on Dec. 30, and then a better player on April 2
than he is on April 1,” Kitchens told reporters in Indianapolis. “Let it go like that and get better every time he walks on the field. Then we’ll see where we are in September and October and so forth.
“… A player is always evolving. He’s never a finished product. When Jim Kelly and Dan Marino retired, I guaranteed you there was something they wish they were a little better at. You’re always evolving, or you’re not going to reach your full potential.”
• On re-signing Robinson, who started the last half of the season and was part of an offensive line that allowed only five sacks in the final eight games:
“Greg was a big boost for our offensive line. Everybody knows that. What I like about Greg is the type competitor he is. He competes on a play-in and playout basis. We need players like Greg Robinson to get to where we want to go.”
Robinson will be paid $7 million in 2019 after earning $790,000 last season.
Perriman’s career, like
Robinson’s, was resurrected by the Browns. Perriman, a first-round draft choice of the Ravens in 2015, was cut by Baltimore on Sept. 1 last year. Perriman spent four days with the Redskins in September last year but was cut on Sept. 22, one day before the Redskins hosted Green Bay.
Perriman was out of work until the Browns signed him on Oct. 13. Robinson, the second overall pick by the Rams in 2014, was traded to Detroit in 2017. Robinson played six games for the Lions. No team signed him last year until the Browns did on June 19.
“Breshad is a good football player,” Kitchens said. “Breshad’s had more success with us than with anybody else, so of course we have plans for Breshad going forward and hopefully we get him back.”
Perriman caught 16 passes for 340 yards and two touchdowns in 10 games with the Browns. He will become an unrestricted free agent on March 13 without a new contract.