First-year Cleveland Browns head coach Freddie Kitchens will enter the 2019 NFL season will much of the franchise's hopes on the back of former first-overall selection Baker Mayfield.

The 24-year-old former Heisman Trophy winner had a promising rookie season once he was given the reins to the Browns offense, and Kitchens, who served as last year's running backs coach and later offensive coordinator, recognizes the elite skill set Mayfield possesses, which has been acquired outside of any kind of drilling or film room.

Via Scott Patsko in Cleveland.com:

“I do not really think you can coach anybody on escaping, and if they tell you that they can, then they are lying to you. I think you just got to have to have a feel for the pocket and when it is collapsing or whatever you got to get out of there or sit there and take a sack, and I do not like sacks.”

Furthermore, Kitchens, 44, defended the Oklahoma product's tendency to improvise and leave the pocket, telling reporters how much Mayfield's game relies on his ability to create and extend plays.

“I think that is part of it when you have a skillset like Baker has that is what you have to determine is when to escape and when to shuffle and move. … With somebody with that kind of skill, you do not ever want to diminish the fact that he can get outside the pocket because that is where his big plays are created a lot of times.”

Mayfield enters his second season with Cleveland in the fall as the shot-caller in a potentially dynamic Browns offense featuring Odell Beckham Jr., Jarvis Landry, and Kareem Hunt.