Browns coach Freddie Kitchens wore a "Pittsburgh started it" T-shirt Friday night.
The shirt created by GV Art + Design was made after the Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers brawled late in Cleveland's 21-7 win on Nov. 14 at FirstEnergy Stadium. The AFC North foes will meet again Sunday at Heinz Field.
On Saturday, a Browns spokesman said Kitchens' family got him the shirt as a joke for his 45th birthday.
Kitchens donned the shirt when he went to a movie theater to see "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood," a film about the late Fred Rogers, who starred in the classic children's television show, "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood."
Kitchens wore a jacket over the shirt, but when he posed for a photograph with a fan, recognizable letters on the shirt were exposed. The picture surfaced on social media and went viral.
Kitchens didn't intend for anyone to see the shirt, the spokesman said.
Earlier in the week, Kitchens preached about the importance of his players focusing on their assignments Sunday instead of the melee from two weeks ago in which Browns defensive end Myles Garrett ripped off the helmet of Mason Rudolph and swung it onto the Steelers quarterback's head. The NFL suspended Garrett indefinitely and doled out lesser suspensions to Browns defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi and Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey, plus fines to a total of 33 players.
"I want them to go into this game with one thing and one thing only on their minds, and that's to do their job," Kitchens said Monday on a conference call. "And anything that overshadows that in any way is not acceptable, and it's not the best for the team. I want guys to show up ready to do their job.
"All that other stuff is just fluff. All right? It's just fluff just to give people things to talk about leading up to Sunday, and then at some point on Sunday around 1 o'clock, we're going to kick the ball off, and then that's when it's going to be for real then at that point. And that's when I want them to be at their best."
