NFL Notebook, Week 15: Lamar Jackson, rebuild candidates, mock draft and more
By Zach Cohen
Concern in Cleveland (Again)
It was supposed to be different this year. Cleveland was searching for its first winning season of the decade. Alas, another losing season has only stirred up fresh rumors of Coach Freddie Kitchens’ inevitable firing. As I’ve said countless times over the season, Kitchens simply couldn’t live up to the colossal hype built up around this year’s team.
Lots of high expectations for the Browns in 2019, but today's loss means they won't finish with a winning season.
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) December 16, 2019
Cleveland’s last winning season (10-6) came in 2007. That’s the longest active drought in the NFL. Every other team has had a winning season this decade. pic.twitter.com/QamGD02STh
Even though the team could still finish with their best record since 2007, nothing has gone as it was supposed to under Kitchens’ first full year as the man in charge. Baker Mayfield was supposed to lead the Browns to a division title; he’s regressed to a point where he has more commercials than passing touchdowns.
Odell Beckham and Jarvis Landry were supposed to be the football version of Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook when they balled out for the Oklahoma City Thunder; fittingly enough, OBJ and Landry could both leave, too.
Superstar defensive end Myles Garrett was supposed to finally be a candidate for Defensive Player of the Year; yeah, experts really hit the nail on the head with that one.
All joking aside, this is an organization that sacrificed a first-round pick, a third-round pick and Jabrill Peppers for a star just to piss off that star. Look, we can all agree that Beckham is overreacting (again) and shouldn’t be whining (again), but the team’s culture and success deserve some blame as well.
2019 was supposed to be different, and what did the Browns get out of it? A whole lot of negative media attention. On a side note, maybe the team would perform better if its star players stopped complaining and instead focused on internal ways to deal with the problem. It might be unfair to assume they haven’t already, though this report suggests otherwise.
More fallout from the Jarvis Landry tirade during the Browns-Cardinals game: I'm told by two sources that before the game ended, 'multiple' Browns players yelled at the Arizona sideline to 'come get me'--asking to come play for the Cardinals. Landry, I'm told, was one of them.
— Michael Silver (@MikeSilver) December 16, 2019
So much for the preseason hype.