Hue Jackson spoke with longtime respected Browns beat reporter Mary Kay Cabot today for the first time since being let go by the Cleveland Browns Monday morning. There was more then a few things to jump out from the interview she did with him for the Plain Dealer / Cleveland.com. Once again, he didn’t hesitate to cast blame on others and also do his best to make it seem like the last two seasons didn’t count.
Quote on if he tried to persuade Jimmy Haslam to take back the offense: “I had a very candid conversation with Jimmy Haslam as I’ve known Jimmy longer than I’ve known John (Dorsey). I think Jimmy knows what I’ve expressed and how I felt and how I would have liked to go out.”
Reaction: Simply put, if the Browns brass of Dorsey and company wanted Jackson to keep calling the plays, they would have let him. Jackson, at 1-31 was in no position to make demands and knew better not to make demands this past offseason. If anything, they flat out told him to hire the offensive coordinator they picked out for him, or he was gone.
Furthermore, Jackson goes on to blame his putrid offense over the last two seasons on bad drafts. While no one will argue that, he has been banging the same drum for years now and no one is listening to it anymore.
Jackson had every chance to install his scheme to the point where all they would have to do is plug in players of more talent when they acquired them, and never did. Whatever he did build wasn’t working. It wasn’t a winning culture and wasn’t about to become one no matter what talent was getting suited up on Sundays.
Flat out, he didn’t build a winning culture and the fact that he claims he would have been successful calling the plays with this roster is also a joke. He already proved he couldn’t be head coach and call plays at the same time. He is not a good multi tasker, despite what talent is on the field.
Quote on if he wanted to draft Carson Wentz: “Oh my gosh, yes. Did I like Carson Wentz? Hell yes.” He goes on to drool over Wentz for the next 2 minutes about how much he impressed Jackson before the 2016 draft.
Reaction: Once again, while I can’t argue with Jackson that the Browns would have been smart to pick Wentz, and that he is right when he says their sole purpose was to stock pile picks. It doesn’t change the fact that the quarterbacks he brought in were terrible.
Jackson was instrumental in the Browns picking Cody Kessler in the 2016 draft, as well as signing RG3. He went crazy over 1 workout from RG3 despite the injury prone player having offers from no other team. On top of that, he raves about the pick of Cody Kessler with no other reason then,” trust me”. Well, we trusted him, and it led to 1 win combined out of the two in 2016.
Then in 2017, they draft DeShone Kizer who Jackson failed to develop and proceeded to look worse each game. Not to mention the fact that Jackson yanked Kizer in several games throughout the season further ruining the kid’s confidence.
So yes, we all wanted Wentz in 2016, Watson and Mahomes in 2017, but who is to say that Jackson wouldn’t have ruined those guys as well? He has a revisionist history when it comes to quarterbacks. It is very easy for him to tell everyone how much he wanted those guys now, but did nothing with the guys he did have.
Quote on the rebuild of the team going in a little different direction then he originally thought: “There is no such thing as a clean start, or total rebuild, or a reset. Had we been doing in year one what I was able to get us to do in year three, there’s no question we would already be a winning football team.”
Reaction: Once again I cannot say I disagree with him on this quote. He was more or less strong armed into taking a job where the organization told him they were going to lose for two straight seasons before they tried to improve. They dangled a carrot of eventual winning and he took it.
He took the carrot to stick around and hopefully still be in charge when the actual players showed up. Once they did, he was given eight games with a rogue offensive coordinator, and that was it. I’m not saying Jackson would have done any better calling the plays himself, that was already proven not to be the case.
The basic points to come out of this interview were that Jackson was shocked he was let go. He didn’t have as much internal discord with Todd Haley as people thought. He didn’t trust any of the quarterbacks he had to coach until Baker Mayfield arrived. And lastly, if they would have just given him the rest of the season and let him take over the play calling the Browns were headed in the right direction. For my money, that sounds like too many “if’s”. The Browns were right to cut ties.
We know what we think of some of these quotes, now tell us what you think in the comment section below!
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