Two years ago, Freddie Kitchens was on the Cleveland Browns’ practice fields in Berea, Ohio, preparing the team for his first season as an NFL head coach.
This week, Kitchens returned to those fields for the first time since the 2019 season. This time, Kitchens was working as senior offensive assistant for New York Giants coach Joe Judge.
The Giants practiced with the Browns on Thursday and Friday. The teams will square off in an NFL preseason game at noon CDT Sunday at FirstEnergy Stadium in Cleveland.
In his 13th season as an NFL assistant, Kitchens had moved from Cleveland’s running-backs coach to offensive coordinator in a staff shakeup. On Oct. 29, 2018, Cleveland fired coach Hue Jackson and offensive coordinator Todd Haley and elevated defensive coordinator Gregg Williams to interim head coach and Kitchens to offensive coordinator.
The Browns had a 3-36-1 record since the start of the 2016 season when the changes were made, but Cleveland won five of its final eight games in 2018, an upturn marked by the improved play of the team’s offense and quarterback Baker Mayfield, the first player picked in the 2018 NFL Draft.
The Browns named Kitchens their head coach on Jan. 12, 2019. But when Cleveland posted a 6-10 record, the Browns fired Kitchens shortly after the final game of their 2019 season.
Not everyone in Cleveland remembers Kitchens for his record. When running back Nick Chubb entered the NFL as a second-round draft choice, Kitchens was his position coach. Kitchens was the Browns’ head coach when Chubb earned his first Pro Bowl invitation with a career-high 1,494 rushing yards in 2019.
“Freddie, that’s my guy,” Chubb told reporters on Thursday. “He was my first NFL running-back coach of my career. The biggest thing for him, that I remember, is every day I stepped on the field, he said, ‘Make today your best day.’ And that’s stuck with me forever. Every time I get on the field, I think about that. I only worry about today. I’ve got to get better today, and nothing else matters.”
After the Browns fired him, Kitchens got right back into coaching as the tight-ends coach on Judge’s first-year staff with the Giants. This year, Kitchens moved to a new post that expands his range.
“Freddie’s a really smart coach,” New York tight end Evan Engram said on Thursday. “In his position now, he’s able to work with the line and then come and work with us and kind of oversee the offense, so his input on a lot of stuff helps us.
“And he’s been around ball a long time. He’s been in every position room, so he knows a lot. Last year, it was good working with him. For him to have a little bit more freedom this year around the offense is a big help for us.”
In Judge’s final season as a backup quarterback and special-teamer at Mississippi State, Kitchens served as the Bulldogs’ tight-ends coach in 2004. When Judge became a graduate assistant on the MSU staff in 2005, Kitchens was coaching the Bulldogs’ running backs.
“Freddie’s hands-on with everything,” Judge said about Kitchen’s current duties with the Giants. “… He’s great for me. He’s great with the players. He brings a natural intensity to them. He brings a lot of experience. He brings, obviously, a different personality. At times, he can crank it up intense. At times, he can make it really light and loose in the meeting room, and you need a combination of both of those right there.”
Judge said Kitchens’ return to Cleveland is the kind of thing that happens all the time in the NFL. Before taking the reins for the Giants, Judge spent his entire NFL career on the staff of the New England Patriots, yet he saw friends and acquaintances when the New York traveling party arrived at the Browns’ facility for the joint practices this week.
“I’ll tell you what, the funny thing about the NFL is it’s a small league,” Judge said. “Even as I walk in the building, there’s equipment managers I’ve worked with before, there’s receivers coaches I’ve worked with before, there’s people in the personnel department that I’ve worked with before, so it’s not uncommon anytime you cross over with organizations that there’s familiar faces in places you’ve been before. Next week, we’ll be in Boston. That’s a place where I spent about a decade raising my kids, but I’m a Giant now.
“You move on. You move to the next place. You carry the experiences with you, but you move on, and you work where your feet are at that time. I can’t speak for any one person on our staff, but every single person on our staff -- Freddie obviously in that category -- is a tremendous help to me. I rely on these guys for their expertise, for their insight. I rely on them for their leadership and the way they develop our players.”
Alabama’s Mr. Football in 1992 at Etowah High School, Kitchens shared the quarterback duties at Alabama with Brian Burgdorf in 1995 before taking over full-time under center for the Crimson Tide in the 1996 and 1997 seasons.
Judge served as a special-teams assistant on the staff of coach Nick Saban at Alabama from 2009 through 2011 before entering the NFL.
Current members of the Giants’ staff who were on the Alabama staff during Judge’s time in Tuscaloosa include defensive quality-control coach Carter Blount, running-backs coach Burton Burns, offensive quality-control coach Russ Callaway, senior defensive assistant Jeremy Pruitt, offensive-line coach Rob Sale, linebackers coach Kevin Sherrer and offensive assistant Jody Wright. New York offensive quality-control coach Nick Williams was a wide receiver for the Tide while Judge was on the staff.
The Giants’ staff also includes Amos Jones as assistant coach for special projects and situations. Jones is a former Alabama player, graduate assistant and special-team coordinator, although he was a Pittsburgh Steelers assistant coach when Judge was on the Tide staff.
Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.
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