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In his Friday conference call with reporters, Cleveland Browns head coach Freddie Kitchens spent most of the time talking about the Myles Garrett situation. The star defensive end had just been suspended indefinitely by the NFL for his personal foul, striking Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph over the head with Rudolph’s own helmet.
Kitchens opened with how the team will progress without Garrett and how the Browns have handled the situation so far,
“(Garrett) understands the magnitude of what occurred last night. He is very remorseful. He is very sorry for his actions. He understands that he let himself down, he let his teammates down and he let his organization down. We look at our team as a family, and in a family, sometimes family members make mistakes. You support them in every way that you can, even if it is an egregious mistake. We know who Myles is a as person. We know who Myles is and the character that Myles has, and that is under no circumstance what he wants to be portrayed as. We will support him. He will learn from it. Our team will learn from it and become better because of it.”
Kitchens offered a good assessment of his private meeting with Garrett and how he feels the disgraced player can reclaim his reputation.
“Myles and I visited for a long time this morning,” Kitchens said. “On a personal level, that is what I want from Myles is to understand that the ball is in his court on how he responds to this. It is up to him on showing people and showing the National Football League that that is not who he is. You are looking at a guy who is a tremendous asset as a teammate, in the entire organization and to our fans. He is always out in the community and doing things for the community.
He is a good teammate. He just lost his cool. He lost his composure. A terrible mistake, and sometimes things like that carry on with someone. If the person puts enough time into it, he can make amends. This will never be like it never happened, but people understand that that is an outlier of Myles Garrett and not the norm.”
The challenge for Kitchens, aside from replacing the NFL’s current sack leader on the field, is to help Garrett rehabilitate his reputation without it being yet another sideshow for the Browns.