Hue Jackson vs. the Cleveland Browns Analytics Team
Cleveland Browns head coach Hue Jackson and the team’s front office disagree on the number of padded practices the team needs in training camp. Is either party right?
Earlier in June, Browns coach Hue Jackson admitted last week in a press conference (via ClevelandBrowns.com) that he does not see eye to eye with the team’s sports performance department when it comes to how many padded practices the team should conduct in training camp.
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“Honestly, they got kind of mad at me to be very honest with you. We had a very candid conversation where they said, ‘Hue, you might want to double-check your padded days schedule.’ I told them, ‘No.’ I know how to take care of a football team. I get a feel for when the guys, we’re pushing them too far and when we need to reel it in. We’re only going to build our football team through playing football. Good football teams play football, real football. They line up and they go after each other, and they come out and do it again the next day.
“Somewhere in there, Coach Jackson has got to be smart enough to say, ‘OK that might be enough. We need to pull off.’ That’s part of being the head coach, as well. It’s part of having a sports science team. I’m sure they’ll give me all the statistical data that you can to forewarn me, but I’m going to trust my football instincts on that one and see if we can get our team to be the best that they can be.”
That’s a lot to digest. Jackson would like to jump right into the full contact practices at the start of training camp but the Browns front office would prefer that Jackson use non padded practices early on in camp in order to train the players to prepare for the physical grind of training camp. Jackson has an issue with that because he wants to use the padded practices early on in camp to set a physical tone for the upcoming season.
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Welcome to Cleveland, coach. The Browns are all in when it comes to analytics and sports performance metrics. Jackson knew this when he took the job in January. It shouldn’t be a surprise to him that the front office is dictating how the Browns practice. After all, it is more of a collaborative effort in Cleveland now. Jackson needs to realize that he is a part of the decision making process, not the final decision maker.
The coach in me sides with Jackson on this one. I’m a firm believer that training camp sets the tone for your football team physically. You have to be in pads to start camp so that you can prepare your players for the physical rigors of a 16-game season. The sooner a team hits in practice, the sooner players become acclimated to contact again. I know that’s foreign concept to some of the number crunchers in the Browns front office, but that’s the reality of the situation.
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Hue Jackson could be a great fit in Cleveland if he’s allowed to coach the team his way. If he’s not going to be allowed to do that, then the Browns will continue to struggle and he will be the latest coach to fail to turn around the downtrodden franchise.