The first words out of Cleveland Browns head coach Freddie Kitchens‘ mouth after his team’s lackluster 13-12 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers spoke volumes.
“It was a frustrating night all the way around.”
Indeed it was for the Browns offense. Despite the defense playing very well and the special teams thriving, the starting offense could not crack the Buccaneers defense for a touchdown.
Baker Mayfield played the entire first half, as did the starting line. But Odell Beckham Jr., Jarvis Landry, David Njoku and Nick Chubb all sat out. Those are the four primary weapons for Mayfield to fire.
Kitchens refused to let their absence be an excuse. He was clearly unhappy with the offensive players who played.
“Not at all, those guys are coached to execute,’’ Kitchens said. “Those guys are coached to do their job and we didn’t do a very good job of preparing those guys to do their job and they didn’t do a good job of doing their job.”
Kitchens wanted to review the game film before pointing more fingers at the poor offensive display, but he knows there are a lot of them to point.
“It’s not going to be acceptable and we’ll figure out why it happened,” Kitchens stated. “Bad technique, bad execution, bad plays, bad play call. It could be any damn thing. We’re not going to start placing blame tonight, we’re in this thing together.’’
The Browns close the preseason next Thursday against the Detroit Lions, a game where Kitchens has already ruled out playing any starters.
