



BEREA, Ohio — With an easy grin, the new head coach of the Cleveland Browns extends his hand and introduces himself with a southern drawl.

This is a warm summer Friday, minutes after a training camp practice this August, and Freddie Kitchens is standing in the Browns’ indoor facility, set to do yet another 1-on-1 interview about his team. It seems reporters from all over want to know how Kitchens, a first-time head coach on any level, plans on handling one of the most talented (yet potentially combustible) teams in recent memory, as the collection of football starpower accumulated by general manager John Dorsey is matched by the collective sum of its big personalities.

There’s second-year quarterback Baker Mayfield, for instance, who pairs a megawatt smile with a fiery personality, one that can turn sharp when receivers run wrong routes or TV/radio personalities talk out of pocket.

There’s also the newly acquired megastar Odell Beckham Jr., who was liked by his ex-teammates in New York but nonetheless remained a media lightning rod due to his occasional sideline outbursts and tendency to criticize his coaches or quarterback.

View photos Odell Beckham Jr. (R) figures to be a top target for Baker Mayfield this season for the Browns. (Getty Images) More

There’s also star running back Kareem Hunt, who was cut by the Kansas City Chiefs last season after a video surfaced of him shoving and kicking a woman in a Cleveland hotel, not to mention other players who either bring plenty of attitude (receiver Jarvis Landry) or baggage (receiver Antonio Callaway).

It’s easy to wonder what will happen to the Browns, a team whose tendency for dysfunction has contributed to 11 consecutive losing seasons. What will happen when someone says or does something that will, at the very least, lead to headlines and at the very worst, become a dreaded “distraction”?

Dorsey doesn’t sound worried.

“That’s natural,” Dorsey told Yahoo Sports.

He believes his roster, led by Mayfield, is stacked with talented players with a passion for the game, which he believes will trump whatever waves may come. Dorsey’s calm also stems from the presence of the man he hired to lead this group in January, a head coach who pairs an affable, workmanlike attitude with a leadership approach he has spent years crafting.

“One thing you admire about Freddie — he’s got no ego, he’s willing to roll his sleeves up, he’s coming to work every day and he understands the task at hand,” Dorsey said. “He’s consistent with his message day in and day out … the players have absolute trust in him. But he’s gonna hold those guys accountable.”

Doing this in the NFL is a delicate balance. Go too hard on players, and a coach can lose them. Go too soft on them, and a coach has an undisciplined team. Kitchens plans on walking that tightrope this year by leaning on an approach he learned from two of his legendary mentors, current Alabama head coach Nick Saban and former New York Giants head coach Bill Parcells.

“I ain’t changin’,” Kitchens told Yahoo Sports with a laugh, when asked how he plans to lead from the front. “I think you have to develop trust, you have to develop respect, and you have to develop loyalty.

“I learned some of that from Coach Saban, I learned some of it from Coach Parcells; there’s nothing that I have that I thought of myself — I’ve seen other people put it into action. Now, I’ve put my own spin on it because I’m always gonna be myself. But at the core of everything they stand for, I think you can put it into those things.”

Start with trust, Kitchens said. To earn it from players, he has learned that a coach must establish that he’ll never lie to them or let them down. He also learned the importance of this during his childhood from his father, Freddie Kitchens Sr.

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