CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Hue Jackson and the director of his foundation stirred up a hornets nest when they took to Twitter to accuse the Browns of paying Jackson extra to lose games.
The allegation came in the wake of a lawsuit filed by former Dolphins head coach Brian Flores on Tuesday accusing three teams – the Dolphins, Giants and Broncos – of discrimination. Within Flores’ suit was a bombshell accusation that Miami owner Stephen Ross offered Flores a $100,000 bonus per loss in the 2019 season which Flores rebuffed.
Back to Jackson, who insinuated on Twitter that Browns ownership did something similar with him by incentivizing losing after he was hired as head coach in 2016.
Jackson appeared on ESPN’s 6 p.m. SportsCenter at the top of their broadcast where he failed to specifically back up his claim, instead falling back on previous grievances with the Haslams and Browns about being set up to fail.
“What I was trying to make sure people understood is that we were paid for, you know you’re going to see it as losing, but the way the team was built there was no chance to win and to win at a high level,” Jackson said in the nearly 14-minute interview. “You’re in a situation to where what you have to do is do the best you can. My record that year was 1-15. There was a four-year plan that was crafted, and I have documentation of that, that any coach would kind of cringe at if he saw it because it talked about things that had nothing to do with winning – aggregate rankings, being the youngest team having so many draft picks – none of those things are what leads to winning.
“Teams that win don’t have a lot of draft picks. Teams that win are not just the youngest team – not that the youngest teams can’t win – so I didn’t understand the process. I didn’t understand what that plan was and I asked for clarity. I asked, ‘What is this?’ because it did not talk about winning and losing until year 3 and 4. So that told you right there that something wasn’t correct, but I still couldn’t understand it until I had the team that I had.”
Jackson also claimed that at the end of the first season he received a bonus which he spoke to Jimmy Haslam about.
“I was interested in taking that money and putting that towards getting us more players on our football team because I didn’t think we were very talented at all,” Jackson said.
Jackson was asked by ESPN anchor Elle Duncan if he was approached by ownership or anyone within the organization specifically about tanking or being incentivized to do it.
“What I was approached by is understanding what the four-year plan was,” Jackson said. “And I think if we understood the mechanics of it, and how it was laid out, I never knew the plan would lead to those things and I didn’t understand it to be very honest. And then once I was in it, and understood everything that was on that plan and how it affected myself and how others were being paid from it, then it made sense to me that this is a team that can’t win, that the first two years, that’s why it doesn’t talk about winning.”
Jackson told ESPN that once he understood what was happening he “immediately called the National Football League and I talked to Roger Goodell about what I thought was going on.”
Jackson also said that he went to arbitration in a case he filed against the Browns, but he did not win.
“People don’t understand that I tried to sound this alarm awhile back, but nobody wanted to listen because the record was so bad so you didn’t have a chance to make a point because all the narratives was that Hue’s just a bad coach,” Jackson said. “That’s not the case at all. We are here today because with what has happened with Brian Flores, I can see some similarities between the two.”
Jackson was then asked to clarify how his situation related to Flores’ allegations.
“I wasn’t offered $100,000 for every game but there was a substantial amount of money made within what happened in this situation every year at the end of it and I didn’t, like I said, really truly understood why.”
Jackson said, “no coach takes any job to lose” while pointing out that coaches who lose on the scale he did with the Browns the first two years typically are fired while he received a contract extension prior to his third season.
He was fired eight games into year three because the team was 2-5-1 following a 1-31 mark the previous two seasons that netted the first pick in the NFL Draft. Interim coach and defensive coordinator Gregg Williams went 5-3 down the stretch with the same roster.
Jackson also lamented that “the same people that were involved are still running the organization” referring to chief strategy officer Paul DePodesta and EVP/GM Andrew Berry.
“So that means they must’ve been doing something right through all that losing,” Jackson said.
Jackson claims the extension was an acknowledgement from Jimmy Haslam of the harm the organization did to his reputation.
“I told him, ‘You have killed my career,’” Jackson said. “And he said, ‘I do, I feel bad.’ That’s when I was given a contract extension and told, ‘Hey we’re going to make this right.’
“I understand it is about winning but I was put in a situation where I could not win.”