Did the Freddie Kitchens' Browns era start unraveling at joint practices with the Colts in the 2019 training camp? You wouldn't expect Kevin Stefanski to make that mistake. (Associated Press)
Remembering when the Browns picked fights with the Colts in joint practices under Freddie Kitchens
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Editor's note: Tony Grossi is a Cleveland Browns analyst for TheLandOnDemand.com and 850 ESPN Cleveland.
When the New York Giants arrive for joint practices with the Browns on Thursday and Friday, Freddie Kitchens will be with them. The former Browns coach, now in his second season as an assistant to head coach Joe Judge, will be a reminder of the debacle that became of the last time the Browns engaged in training camp with another team.
It was the summer of 2019 and much like today, expectations for the Browns were high. Kitchens was a rookie head coach trying to prove that he could mold a roster of strong personalities into a team. His two days of joint practices in Westfield, IN, against the Indianapolis Colts were seen as an opportunity to bond the team through a common goal against a common enemy.
“[The two practices] are not going to make or break our season, but it is going to give us a little barometer of where we are at from a physical standpoint,” Kitchens said the day before the team departed.
The first day was not to Kitchens’ and players’ liking. “Good first day’s work,” opined Baker Mayfield. “Got to be a little more physical.”
A minor skirmish on a field away from Kitchens’ view moved the coach to say, “I just know we’re not gonna take nothing from anybody. At some point you’ve got to stand up for yourself. We’re not going to get penalties against our own team in Berea. But we’re not gonna come here and take anything, either.”
At a team meeting later that night, Kitchens challenged his team to be more physical. The next day, Kitchens spoke to receiver Jarvis Landry prior to the first play of the first team drill. Then on the very first snap by the Browns’ offense, Landry jolted Colts cornerback Pierre Desir on a simple handoff to Nick Chubb.
The tone was set.
Over the next two hours, there were at least four one-on-one physical confrontations and two bench-clearing brawls. All of which brought a smile to the face of Kitchens.
“I think we learned a lot about ourselves from the standpoint of that’s how you have to approach it. You keep your tempo. Let everybody else adjust to yours, not the other way around,” Kitchens said. “We identified [a] problem last night, and they came out and fixed it.”
Odell Beckham Jr., who did not participate, observed, “We came here to impose our will the same way we do in the regular season when it comes up. We are not backing down from anybody, and I love that mentality. That is all I have ever known. Like I said, you do not want [fights] to happen, but it happens sometimes.”
The aftermath
In the preseason game that ensued, the Browns won, 21-18, but committed 13 penalties. Most of the infractions were by rookies and first-year players. But the lack of discipline spilled into the season.
The Browns committed 18 penalties in the season-opener and had a player ejected for kicking. Later in the season, Myles Garrett was suspended for the final six games for ripping off the helmet of Pittsburgh quarterback Mason Rudolph and banging it on his unprotected head.
It’s arguable whether the seeds of a season out of control were sown in the joint workouts with the Colts. But there’s little doubt that Kitchens’ strategy in asserting his team’s toughness was problematic, at best.
Browns linebacker Anthony Walker was with the Colts in 2019. When I asked him about those joint practices, he was smiling before I could finish the question.
“It was a great opportunity at that time for the Colts and Browns to get better,” Walker said. “It’s football. There’s gonna be words thrown around and that stuff. But at end of day, I thought we got great work during that joint practice. We expect to get the same work against the Giants.”
I asked Walker if he had the feeling the Browns went in there with the purpose of roughing up the Colts.
“Are you asking if I play for the Colts or if I play for the Browns?” Walker said, again smiling. “We didn’t get pushed around. We’re not going to let anybody do that. Obviously, this is our home field. We have to protect it, no matter what. We’re going to keep it at football, compete, have fun. We’ll leave it at that.”
A different tact
Kitchens was old-school, a branch of the Bill Parcells coaching tree that believed in extremely physical practices. Kevin Stefanski, his successor with the Browns, is new school. He espouses a more cerebral approach to getting in productive work without declarations of “imposing our will.”
The Giants had a brawl among themselves in their first padded practice earlier this month. Judge read them the riot act and punished his team with 12 minutes of 100-yard wind sprints and two sets of push-ups. He angrily chased his team off the field with two periods of practice to go.
The Giants haven’t had a in-team fight since.
So what does all this mean for the joint practices on Thursday and Friday?
Stefanski and Judge have agreed to certain rules. There will be no tackling to the ground and no fighting.
But Walker asserts, “Definitely the level of intensity’s going up. It’s not just another practice. It’s a game-like atmosphere going against another team.”
Stefanski will lay down the law to his team.
“I have talked about it with a few of the guys,” he said. “I will talk with the entire team about it as we get closer to it. Really, it is not any different than when we have been out here. We get some really good work in, and we take care of each other. It is because we respect each other. It is no different when the Giants come in here. They are our guests, and we want to make sure that we work. We work hard and we compete against each other, but we are always going to be taking care of each other and making sure that it is a safe, controlled environment.
“I would not say that [fighting] is inevitable. I think it is incumbent upon both teams and the veterans on those teams to make sure that they understand that this is a work trip. We have two days of practice versus the Giants. We are playing them on Sunday and both teams are looking forward to getting some good work in.”
