Cleveland Browns: Nothing is ever Hue Jackson’s fault
By Peter Smith
Hue Jackson can’t win a game, but managed to secure a victory in the blame game with the Cleveland Browns for the second year in a row, now getting Sashi Brown fired.
Jimmy Haslam has decided to fire Executive Vice President of Operations Sashi Brown after a year of turmoil between he and head coach Hue Jackson. According to a report by Mary Kay Cabot, the two hadn’t been on speaking terms for basically a month, which tracks back to the A.J. McCarron debacle.
Any number of national outlets are reporting that Haslam has been looking into finding a general manager to replace Brown for weeks. This also likely coincides with the failed McCarron trade.
Basically, Brown was fired for saving the team from giving up a second and third round pick for a journeyman quarterback, all while being asked to believe that the coach, the only connection to McCarron, wasn’t behind it.
Much of this year, Jackson has struggled to hide his contempt for Brown in public while “sources” that all logically trace back to Jackson have been crushing Brown in behind the scenes Jackson would have people believe that leaks aren’t who he is and that the Browns organization is where the leaks come from.
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Jackson, not done yet, also tried to make the case that he didn’t hire an offensive coordinator because the offense wasn’t good enough and didn’t want that newly hired coordinator taking the blame for it. This assumes that people fail to realize that coaching hires are done before free agency and the draft, while also telling the locker room that can listen to or read these comments, they aren’t good enough. Well played.
So Jackson is now hanging a carrot out there that he’ll hire an offensive coordinator, something he needed to do two years ago. And while people may think this could lead to an inspired hire and really make the offense better, bringing in a new face to add to this team, Jackson isn’t that progressive and will instead recycle the 70-year old Al Saunders, the current wide receivers coach and Jackson’s former offensive coordinator when he was the head coach of the Oakland Raiders.
Jackson has a bad habit of never thinking ahead and doing everything in the moment. He never thinks ahead, so he’s taking a flamethrower to everyone in the organization, players, ownership and everyone else, while humbly suggesting he needs to do a better job.
You’re 1-27, Hue. Are you sure this isn’t working yet?
Let’s assume that Hue was willing to reach out to a young play caller or a great general manager. He’s got a track record for torching anyone he doesn’t like, so now he’s going try to tell them…well, I won’t do that to you. This is exactly what got him fired from Oakland when he was 8-8, so he’s going to be stuck with Saunders.
Last year, Jackson put the blame on Ray Horton after going 1-15. Horton did a better job with his side of the ball than Jackson did with his, but Horton was fired and Gregg Williams was brought in to replace him.
This year, Jackson is trying to make the case that Sashi Brown and company couldn’t give him enough players to win. Evidently, adding players like Myles Garrett, Emmanuel Ogbah, Larry Ogunjobi, Derrick Kindred, Corey Coleman, David Njoku, Shon Coleman, J.C. Tretter, Kevin Zeitler, Briean Boddy-Calhoun, Jason McCourty, Jamar Taylor and Jamie Collins just aren’t good enough to get one win this season.
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Hue Jackson is fantastic at blaming people. He’s just not good at winning football games, having just one so far in 28 tries. This is a worse mark than the John McKay led Tampa Bay Buccaneers when they were an expansion team that predated free agency. Firing Sashi Brown is questionable enough, but retaining Hue Jackson potentially for another season is the type of unmitigated disaster that will be its own chapter in Cleveland Browns lore.