As organized team activities wrap up in Cleveland, Freddie Kitchens expressed Thursday that he wished new Browns receiver Odell Beckham Jr. had been around more.
OBJ has been absent for most of Cleveland's nine-day voluntary OTAs -- as is his right under the Collective Bargaining Agreement -- but Kitchens said that the wideout missed out on a bunch.
Asked what his goals are for Beckham when he likely returns for the team's mandatory minicamp next Tuesday, Kitchens said, "I just want to see him."
OBJ's missed "a lot," Kitchens added. "The offense."
The first-year head coach had previously expressed lenience toward Beckham's skipping voluntary workouts.
"There's no problem with Odell not being here," Kitchens said earlier this month. "I'd rather him be here. He's not here. It's voluntary. That's what the word voluntary means. He can decide to come or he can't.
"But under no circumstance am I going to say that I'm pissed off at Odell for not being here. He'll be ready to play and ultimately that's the only thing I want, for him to be ready to play when we start kicking off in September and he will be -- I promise you."
Odds are Beckham will show up ready to rock and Rolls Royce next week and everything will be copacetic in Cleveland beforce camp concludes.
But it's hard to blame Kitchens, a rookie coach trying to implement his offense with a renovated roster, for wanting the Browns' most dangerous addition to be around from start to finish.
