Freddie Kitchens liked what he saw from Garrett Gilbert on Saturday, but he was adamant about the hierarchy in the Browns' quarterback room.
Baker Mayfield is the starter and veteran Drew Stanton is the backup.
While continuing to commend the preseason efforts of Gilbert, Kitchens went into further detail about why Stanton is so valued as Cleveland's first option off the bench behind Mayfield.
"Drew is very valuable to the quarterback room, which is the most important room in the building to have continuity in there and to have the ability for everybody in there to check their egos at the door and to get the starter ready to play. That is their job every week," Kitchens said. "Everybody in that room is going to have a job. It may be red zone breakdowns. It may be third down breakdowns. It may be play action breakdowns. Everybody in that room has a job on a week-to-week basis, and Drew does a good job of organizing that and making sure they stay on track. It is good to have a young guy with Baker to have somebody like that in the mix, especially with someone who has been with me for so long."
Kitchens believes Stanton, who has 17 career starts, is just as effective as a quarterback as he was in his earlier years. He just has to conduct his business in a different way. Kitchens had a front-row seat in 2017 with the Arizona Cardinals when Stanton went 3-1 in relief of an injured Carson Palmer.
"I think once a quarterback gets to a certain point in their career, they have to start doing it with their mind a little bit more than their legs," Kitchens said. "He still has an arm, and he is still pretty accurate. The last 16 games Drew has played, he is 10-6. It is a production business. I do not care what anybody says or anybody thinks they see. It is a production based business and getting the job done. It is either yay or nay."
Here's what else you might have missed from Monday's practice.
Check out photos from the seventeenth day of Browns Camp by team photographer Matt Starkey