Since they came back in 1999, the Cleveland Browns have known a thing or two about hiring horrible head coaches. Dallas Robinson, an NFL writer from Pro Football Network, noted how bad the Browns are at hiring coaches and made a Top 10 list of the worst coaching hires in NFL history. Two Cleveland head coaches found themselves on the list.
9. Freddie Kitchens
Freddie Kitchens came in as number nine on the list, and he was pretty bad in his one season as the Cleveland Browns head coach in 2019.
Kitchens was hired as the head coach after an impressive run as the interim offensive coordinator in 2018, but he could never figure it out as a head coach. Second-year quarterback Baker Mayfield had the worst season of his career in 2019, and here is what Robinson had to say about the former coach.
Freddie Kitchens probably shouldn’t have been an NFL head coach. Being promoted from Cleveland Browns RB coach to interim head coach to full-time head coach in three months must have been a whirlwind, and the results during the 2019 campaign were about what you might have expected.
Cleveland lost by 30 points to the Tennessee Titans in Week 1, perhaps a sign of things to come. Kitchens consistently appeared overwhelmed. In Week 3, he called a draw run play on 4th-and-9, the first such call at that down and distance since 2006. Browns players complained that the team’s medical staff didn’t properly treat their injuries.
Fired after one 6-10 season at the helm, Kitchens worked for the New York Giants and the South Carolina Gamecocks before joining the North Carolina Tar Heels in 2023.
4. Hue Jackson
Hue Jackson was hired by the Cleveland Browns in 2016, and in his first two seasons, he won one game. He went 1-15 in 2016 and then got worse in 2017, failing to reach one win. Jackson would coach until the middle of 2018 and was fired after a 2-5-1 record. Jackson only won three games in two and half seasons in Cleveland, and it wasn’t all his fault because the roster was awful, but only winning three games in almost three seasons is pretty bad, and here is what was written about Jackson.
The Cleveland Browns’ decision to hire Hue Jackson as their head coach in 2016 didn’t come out of left field. His 2015 Bengals offense finished second in scoring, while Jackson offered previous HC experience after going 8-8 with the 2011 Oakland Raiders. He was a coveted candidate who planned to interview for several other top jobs that offseason.
Jackson didn’t have much talent with the tanking Browns, but his results were about as poor as any head coach in NFL history. Jackson went 1-31 over his first two seasons in Cleveland, and his one victory came by just three points. Somehow, Jackson was allowed to keep his job; he began the 2018 campaign 2-5-1 before being fired.
Jackson’s .205 winning percentage is the NFL’s second-worst all-time, trailing only Bert Bell, who coached the Eagles in the 1930s.
Cleveland Browns Have A Good One Right Now
The Cleveland Browns are lucky they found a head coach, Kevin Stefanski, in the offseason of 2020. He has turned the entire team and culture around and will not be on any list of the worst coaching hires in NFL history.