The Cleveland Browns are headed for a divorce and the only question is if either parent will receive custody of the children.
What has been playing out through anonymous sources and leaks through most of the year has come to the forefront for the Cleveland Browns. Hue Jackson’s contempt for the front office and his lack of belief in their ability to put together a team that enables him to succeed is out there for everyone to see. And Jackson’s been largely trying to get people to his side on this issue have fallen woefully short in no small part because Jackson himself never helps his own case.
In his Monday press conference, Jackson was asked a direct question from the media as to whether he believed in “the plan” the Browns have for their team. After stammering a little bit, he basically claimed ignorance on the subject.
When he was pushed on it, rightly, Jackson made a wandering, rambling word salad in attempt to get off the subject, he then tried to remove himself from any connection to the front office saying that he was only brought in to coach the team.
Jackson, earlier in the same press conference, had said he has the players to win and they simply haven’t made enough plays. He also said that the current 1-25 record is something he owns. So after effectively trying to clear himself of anything front office, he basically put the target on himself as to what the problem is.
In a must-lie situation, Hue Jackson couldn’t hold back his contempt. Meanwhile, he is trying to suggest that he didn’t have any part in the roster. He’s asking everyone to believe that the front office decided on their own to try to trade for A.J. McCarron, a quarterback that only he has any real familiarity, which goes against what Sashi Brown said a week and a half prior.
All of this is happening within 24 hours of a meeting that the Haslams had with the Browns leadership council of 12 players plus the head coach. It was revealed that the Haslams communicated to the players that they intended to stick with “the plan” almost minutes after Jackson had finished his press conference where he said he wasn’t involved any plan. So on top of everything else wrong with what he said, it’s it was an outright lie that was disproved moments after he said it.
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Jackson has been either directly conducting or allowing this subterfuge to occur pretty much all season in regards to the front office. There are all of these “anonymous” reports from various media outlets talking about only about mistakes the front office is allegedly making, it’s not difficult to figure out the origin.
All of this may stem from the decision not to take Carson Wentz. According to reporting from Benjamin Allbright (with a little assist from Justis Mosqueda here), Jackson did in fact want Wentz and the front office didn’t. And clearly Jackson has been right as Wentz is one of the brightest stars in the league right now, giving him the moral high ground in personnel, especially at quarterback. The problem is that, since then, Jackson has done everything in his power to not only cede it, but bury himself under it.
It also doesn’t change the fact that Jackson cannot manage a clock properly or know when to use timeouts on Sundays. So while Jackson may have gotten an extremely important decision correct, it’s one huge victory followed by a string of embarrassing defeats and it seems to be impacting his ability do the job he was hired to do.
While the Browns would be better in the standings right now with Wentz, it’s really difficult to believe that that’s the one decision that would now be saving Jackson, given his obvious struggles everywhere else. It feels as though the conversation would be about finding Wentz the right coach to maximize his ability, especially if they were going to run the exact same offense they have with Kizer.
The other part of this that hurts Jackson in this discussion is the front office hasn’t retaliated thus far. There haven’t been anonymous reports taking shots at the coaching staff. In the one press conference Sashi Brown has had this season, he was extremely supportive of Jackson. That may well have be a bald faced lie, but even the same day, Jackson was unwilling to reciprocate. It just makes Jackson look petty and small.
This breach of trust and the obvious contempt from Jackson are reasons enough to fire him. Add in the complete lack of ability to manage games and there’s another big reason. And in the event the Haslams were to side with Jackson, it would be difficult to find a good front office candidate to work with Jackson, short of a flunky not unlike what Eric Mangini had, because Jackson has clearly shown he’s not afraid to undermine them in public. He’s making himself largely unemployable.
This is all before discussing Jackson coaching a single player. That’s a problem. And when it comes to coaching the players, it’s difficult to ignore his extremely poor utilization of Duke Johnson, not playing David Njoku enough and his handling of DeShone Kizer.
Jackson warrants being fired, but none of this guarantees the front office is safe. Certainly, if the Haslams are telling the players that they are going forward with ‘the plan’, that might suggest the front office is indeed safe. One can only hope, but they could change their mind and clean house or their version of the ‘the plan’ is far different from what everyone else thinks it is.
It’s really unclear what the Haslams actually think about the job the front office has done. Passing on Wentz may be a huge mark against them and potentially could be enough to sink them in the minds of ownership. After all, it’s the quarterback.. Meanwhile, what they’ve brought in certainly has been promising and has them headed in a better direction with the ability to get their quarterback in the 2018 NFL Draft as well as continue to build their team as a whole with the bounty of draft assets they’ve collected.
Purely as a contrast, the lack of professionalism Jackson has shown can only help the front office. To this point, they have not gotten down in the mud and had a public fight with the coaching staff and that could be extremely important to the Haslams. Jackson has done or allowed things that are embarrassing to ownership and that never goes over well.
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The only thing that’s clear is that at least one of these two sides will not be with the Cleveland Browns in 2018 and that a bitter divorce is only a matter of time. Hue Jackson has done plenty to bury himself in public while front office’s failures are a little more private, nuanced and theoretical this far into their tenure. It’s possible that both sides could be gone in the end, but if “the plan” is to believed, it would suggest ownership isn’t looking to start over from scratch, but it’s also anyone’s guess what ‘the plan’ even is at this point.