NFL coaches seem to be dropping around the league as the regular season comes to a close.

After two seasons on the job, the New York Giants have fired coach Pat Shurmur, however will keep general manager Dave Gettleman. Looking ahead, Baylor coach Matt Rhule, who served as an assistant offensive line coach for the Giants in 2012, is the focus of the Giants’ search.

Shurmur accumulated a 9-23 record with the Giants and a 19-46 record in four season as head coach of the Giants and Cleveland Browns. He is seventh-lowest of all time among coaches in NFL history.

In a statement issued by the Giants, team president John Mara and chairman Steve Tisch said, “This morning, we made the very difficult decision that it would be in the best interest of the franchise that we relieve Pat of his duties. The last three seasons have been extremely disappointing for the organization and our fans. Pat has been a successful and highly-respected NFL coach for 21 years and he is not solely responsible for our record.”

Shurmur faced a team that lacked top-level talent, especially on defense, and a quarterback position that was faced with the choice of aging franchise legend Eli Manning and mistake-prone rookie Daniel Jones.

The Cleveland Browns have also fired their head coach, Freddie Kitchens, after just a single season.

After being promoted to offensive coordinator last season after Cleveland fired Hue Jackson, he retained the head coach spot at the start of this year.

Entering the season with high expectations and a spread of top-tier talent, the Browns went 6-10, having lost games due to sloppy decisions and dumb mistakes.

The Browns are seeking their seventh full-time coach since 2009 as they search for a leader who can wrangle their talent and turn this team around.

The Browns released a statement saying, “We thank Freddie for his hard work and commitment to this organization but did not see the success or opportunities for improvement to move forward with him as our head coach. Our focus is on hiring an exceptional leader for this football team and we will take a comprehensive approach to this process.”

The Browns‘ catastrophic roller coaster of a season is finally over and Freddie Kitchens is out as head coach. In the postgame press conference the first year head coach sounded confident he would return next season and told the media, “We’ve got meetings scheduled through next week, and I’m looking forward to going to work tomorrow. They have not given me any indication of anything else. Mr. Jimmy and Dee, I think they want me to do my job, and that’s what I’m gonna do — until they tell me not to, if they tell me not to.”

Unfortunately for Kitchens that wasn’t the case. When the team’s jet landed in Cleveland following an inexcusable 33-23 loss to the 2-14 Bengals, owner Jimmy Haslam and general manager John Dorsey spoke with Kitchens at the team’s practice facility firing him after his first full season as head coach. The former understudy of Bill Parcells finished the season with a 6-10 record.

According to a team source, Jimmy and fellow owner Dee Haslam announced the decision while they were still in a meeting with Kitchens. “We thank Freddie for his hard work and commitment to this organization but did not see the success or opportunities for improvement to move forward with him as our head coach. Our focus is on hiring an exceptional leader for this football team and we will take a comprehensive approach to this process. We are excited about the core players we have to build around and develop and we look forward to bringing in a strong head coach that will put this group of players in the best position to succeed,” the Haslams said.

Since buying the team in 2012, the Haslams have now gone through six head coaches, including interims. In the last 20 years the franchise has had 12 different head coaches and terrible leadership. The last time Cleveland made the playoffs was in 2002.

Kitchens started his career with the Browns as a running back’s coach in 2018 before taking over for fired coach Hue Jackson last season. Kitchens went 5-3 in 2018 and was praised for helping Baker Mayfield break the rookie record for touchdown passes with 27.

However, the success didn’t last. There were too many distractions on and off the field including the infamous altercation between defensive end Myles Garrett and Steelers’ quarterback Mason Rudolph. Going into their second matchup of the season after Garrett was suspended for ripping off Rudolph’s helmet and striking him with it, Kitchens was seen wearing a t-shirt that read “Pittsburgh started it.” It was an immature act and just sums up what Cleveland is known for, dysfunction.

With high expectations going into the season Kitchens was unable to get the offense going and failed to keep Mayfield out of harm’s way. The second year quarterback finished with 21 interceptions and the offense ranked 22nd in efficiency, according to NFL Stats.

Sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter that the Browns have requested permission to meet with Patriots’ offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels and Ravens’ offensive coordinator Greg Roman. If Cleveland can hire either of those guys it will surely be an upgrade over Kitchens.

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The Browns had just a scored a touchdown Sunday before failing to convert a two-point conversion during Sunday’s 31-15 loss to the Ravens. Odell Beckham Jr. could not contain his emotions.

Beckham had just caught a three-yard touchdown pass and the Browns tried to go for two with a pass to Ricky Seals-Jones that went through the wide out’s hands. Right after that the outspoken receiver was seen throwing off his helmet on the sidelines before having an intense conversation with Head coach Freddie Kitchens, demonstratively pointing towards the field multiple times.

“We were just talking,” Beckham said about his sideline talk with Kitchens. “Basically, they were warning me that if I had one more personal foul, then I would be out of the game, which I thought was pretty stupid. I got a personal foul for a celebration that I’ve done all year. It’s not like a player was in front of me or anybody was, like very unintentional. It is what it is.”

The ironic part of this was Beckham’s choice of cleats that were a furry “Grinch” theme with red and white lettering that said “OBJ.” Perhaps his time with the Browns has made his heart shrink “two sizes too small”.

This blowup followed alleged rumors last week that claimed Beckham was telling opposing teams to “come get him” out of Cleveland. Beckham denied those rumors and told ESPN, “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be here. We’ll figure this thing out. It’s just too special to leave. Yeah, we’re going to be here. We’re going to do it again, and we’re going to be what we felt like we should’ve been and correct all the little mistakes and all the if-we-would’ve-did-this games. It’s just too good.”

The star wideout has reportedly played with a sports-related hernia and his numbers are exceptional, but still down from last year’s campaign with the Giants. With one game left to go, Beckham has 71 catches and 951 yards receiving, but just three touchdowns.

The Browns lost their second game in a row. Their record is now 6-9.

Cleveland Browns Head Coach Freddie Kitchens was seen wearing a “Pittsburgh Started It” t-shirt at a movie on Friday just two weeks removed from the awful incident between Browns defensive tackle Myles Garrett and Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph.

In a game between the Browns and Steelers on November 14, Garrett sacked Rudolph in the fourth quarter of the game. Rudolph was then seen trying to grab Garrett’s face-mask, which lead to Garrett ripping off Rudolph’s helmet and hitting him with it. Garrett has since been suspended for the rest of the season, although he claims Rudolph directed a racial slur toward him. The league is still investigating the matter and discussing whether or not Garrett will face discipline next season.

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Following the game two weeks ago Kitchens told reporters, “I’ve never seen that in my life. It’s not good.” Then he decides to pull this.

Referencing the incident with a t-shirt is something a crazed fan might do, but a head coach should not. Especially when you’re leading an organization that has had 11 different coaches in the last 20 years. He didn’t have to wear the shirt and now his team has yet another distraction to deal with.  In the press conference following the Brown’s 20-13 loss to Pittsburgh on Sunday, Kitchens told reporters, “The t-shirt didn’t have anything to do with this. I wore a t-shirt, I wore a jacket with it. My daughter told me to wear the shirt and I’d wear it again. I put a jacket on, I covered it up. I took a picture with a fan. It was as simple as that. The t-shirt didn’t cause us to give up 40-yard passes. We we’re ready to play.”

Steelers guard Ramon Foster said, “You just don’t see that from upper management. We’ve all got to grow as professionals in some sense. I’m glad Coach [Tomlin] doesn’t do anything like that. I know our coach would have never done anything like that.”

After acquiring star receivers Odell Beckham and Jarvis Landry then drafting Baker Mayfield number one overall in the 2018 NFL draft, the Browns appeared to be turning things around. But that was just on the surface. Underneath it all there was ego, inexperienced coaching and over hyped expectations. It’s not a surprise that one of the league’s worst organizations has screwed up yet again. It doesn’t look good for Kitchens who was one of the biggest question marks for football experts this season. He took over head coaching duties last year after Hugh Jackson was fired. He finished the year with a 5-3 record, but he may be out of a job after this dumpster fire of a season. These are the same old Browns just creating new problems.

The Cleveland Browns were facing a fourth-and-9 opportunity in the fourth quarter on Sunday with a chance to take the lead late and decided to go with a draw play by handing the ball off to running back Nick Chubb.

Chubb was stuffed for a gain of only two yards, which was not good enough to convert on fourth down.

When a team has the ball on the opposition’s 40-yard line late in the game and holds a chance to take the lead, this is a golden opportunity for a squad looking to get off to a good start on the year. Consequently, when the Browns couldn’t convert the fourth-down attempt, people naturally looked for someone to blame.

However, starting quarterback Baker Mayfield refused to let the blame lie with the play that was called or the coaching staff.

“I know what you guys are gonna try and do is talk about the playcalling,” Mayfield said. “But you know what, that’s why I said execution’s the most important thing. Whatever we have called, we have to do our job.”

On the other hand, Browns head coach Freddie Kitchens did not fault his offense. Kitchens opted instead to admit that in hindsight, the draw play was a “bad call.”

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Even after that, the Browns had a chance to send the game into overtime after driving the ball down to the Rams’ 4-yard line. After three straight incompletions, however, Mayfield’s desperation toss into the endzone was intercepted to seal the win for the Rams.

Following that stalled drive, Kitchens was again questioned as to why he didn’t attempt to run the ball with Chubb as his team still had three timeouts left.

Kitchens stood up to reporters, weathered the storm and took responsibility as the leaders of the Browns.

“I gotta do a better job during the course of the week, putting these guys in better situations and then on game day,” the coach said. “So, if you’re looking to blame somebody, blame me. Don’t blame any of our players; don’t blame any of our other coaches — just blame me, because I can take it.

“Go write your article and say I messed the game up. Go write your article and say it’s my fault things [are] not looking like it did last year. Because it is,” Kitchens added.

With the loss, the Browns dropped to 1-2 on the year and will have some work to do to get back to the form they were in during last season’s winning surge.

The re–vamped Cleveland Browns will go on without running back Duke Johnson next season, as the team exchanged his services with the Houston Texans for conditional fourth round pick during next year’s draft.

Last year, Johnson saw his workload decrease rapidly, carrying the ball just 40 times for 201 yards while failing to reach the endzone at all. However, Johnson posted the highest yards per–carry mark across the entire league last year at 7.2 YPC. However, even after inking a three–year deal with Cleveland last summer, his depth chart positioning behind second year man Nick Chubb and eventually Kareem Hunt ruptured the relationship between Johnson and the Browns, leading to eventual his trade request.

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Browns head coach Freddie Kitchens offered his best wishes and mentioned his appreciation for Johnson as a he stated, “Duke was a good football player. He is a good football player. It’s hard to let good football players go. But we did what was best for the organization and the Cleveland Browns. We wish Duke nothing but the best.”

Quarterback Baker Mayfield formerly expressed his displeasure for Johnson during the summer’s early days. However, Mayfield categorized his relationship with Johnson since as “good.”

Still tied to his contract until the 2021 season, Johnson now awaits a second chance with the Texans. Although Lamar Miller still stands as the likely candidate to maintain the team’s starting running back duties, Johnson likely eyes a chance to serve as the team’s secondary rusher or potentially a role as a third–down back. As a prominent pass–catching back as well, look for Johnson to add into the Houston’s air strike offensive capabilities as a target for quarterback Deshaun Watson.

Joining stars such as DeAndre Hopkins and  J.J. Watt  as well, Jonson now stands by for a chance to make the playoffs for the first time in his career with Houston.

On Wednesday, the Cleveland Browns named Freddie Kitchens as their ninth-full time head coach since 1999.

Kitchens To Replace Interim Head Coach Gregg Williams 

According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, former defensive coordinator and interim head coach Gregg Williams was relieved of his coaching duties. Kitchens, 44, beat out Minnesota Vikings interim coordinator Kevin Stefanski for the job. Stefanski will not be joining the staff and instead returns to Minnesota.

The 44-year-old Kitchens began the 2018 season as Cleveland’s assistant head coach and running backs coach. However, after Hue Jackson was fired, he was moved to offensive coordinator. In the next eight games, the offense would shine: No. 1 overall pick Baker Mayfield would go 5-3 as opposed to 1-4, and his passer rating would jump almost 20 points to a 106.2 rating.

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Some critics claimed that Kitchens wasn’t ready to be a head coach. His response: “Who the hell is ready to be a head coach?”

Even before his hiring, general manager John Dorsey endorsed Kitchens as a coach, saying he’s “moved the bar on the offensive side of the ball” and “He’s gotten the ball out of the quarterback’s hands quicker.”

Cleveland fans have loved the hire. Here’s how social media reacted: