If you happened to be a former coach of the Cleveland Browns, today was not a great day for you. Especially if you happened to have worked under another former Browns coach at the University of North Carolina.
Both former Browns head coach Freddie Kitchens and former special teams coordinator Mike Priefer were fired by another former Browns head coach, Bill Belichick, today. Both were on Belichick’s staff with the Tar Heels‘ football program. Priefer was his special teams coordinator, while Kitchens was the offensive coordinator. This marks a new low in the Belichick era in Chapel Hill, which has been anything but smooth to this point.
Kitchens was on the Cleveland staff under head coach Hue Jackson, where he coached running backs in 2018 and was the associate head coach. He was then promoted to interim offensive coordinator that year when the offensive coordinator Todd Haley was fired midseason. Kitchens was then named head coach of the Cleveland Browns in 2019, and that tenure was one long and painful year.
Priefer was hired as the special teams coordinator under Kitchens in 2019, then he was carried over onto Kevin Stefanski’s staff when he was hired in 2020. Priefer was then on Stefanski’s staff for three seasons before he was fired in 2023 and replaced with current special teams coordinator Bubba Ventrone.