There will be a familiar person calling plays against the Cleveland Browns Sunday night when they face the New York Giants.
Freddie Kitchens was the head coach in Cleveland last season. He was fired after one year and hired by the New York Giants as tight ends coach.
Now, after offensive coordinator Jason Garrett tested positive for COVID-19, Kitchens will get the chance to call plays against his former team.
The Giants’ coaches and players did not meet in person on Monday or Tuesday. Per league guidelines, they worked remotely. The Giants did practice in person on Wednesday.
In another possible quirky coincidence, if Daniel Jones is unable to go at quarterback for Big Blue, the Giants would turn to Colt McCoy, who sttarted his NFL career in Cleveland and was there from 2010-12.
Per ESPN.com:
Kitchens’ success with the Browns late in the 2018 season earned him a promotion to head coach last year. Cleveland finished 13th in total offense during Baker Mayfield’s rookie season. He threw 19 of his rookie-record 27 touchdown passes in the final eight games under Kitchens, when the Browns went 5-3.
But Cleveland fired Kitchens after a rocky 2019 season in which Mayfield regressed and threw 21 interceptions.
First-year Giants coach Joe Judge had worked with Kitchens at Mississippi State and Alabama.
Kitchens’ reign in Cleveland was characterized by a dysfunctional offense that players such as Jarvis Landry said after the season had no plan after the first 15 scripted plays.
“We didn’t have a true identity,’’ Landry told cleveland.com on radio row at the Super Bowl in January. “We just couldn’t find a way to get on the same page and that hurt us.’’
