CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Jimmy Haslam had enough of Hue Jackson’s bid to garner sympathy over his time with the Browns in the wake of Brian Flores’ lawsuit against three NFL teams.
Jackson, along with the executive director of his foundation, Kimberly Diemert, took to Twitter and inferred that the Browns paid Jackson to lose games, similar to one of the accusations Flores made in his lawsuit that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross offered him $100,000 per loss in 2019 which he rejected.
Jackson appeared on ESPN’s SportsCenter where he failed to back up his claims with specific allegations other than he was set up to fail by the Browns, which is the same story he has told since being fired midway through the 2018 season.
The Browns denied Jackson’s claims in a statement earlier this week, but Haslam went on the record in an interview with Adam Sparks of knoxnews.com.
“Unequivocally, Hue Jackson was never paid to lose games,” Haslam told Sparks. “That is an absolute falsehood. And it’s also an absolute falsehood that I laughed while we were losing. Most people who know me would say, ‘That’s not how Jimmy would react to losing.’
“In the 15-minute ESPN interview that he did, for approximately 14-and-a-half minutes it was about how he was treated so poorly with the Browns and lots of claims he had.”
Jackson went 3-36-1 with the Browns, including 1-15 and 0-16 campaigns in 2016 and 2017 that earned the team the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft in 2017 and 2018.
“Hue Jackson has never ever accepted any responsibility for our record during that time period,” Haslam told Sparks. “He’s been masterful at pointing fingers but has never accepted any blame. I have accepted a ton of blame, and rightfully so.
“There are a lot of things I could’ve done better. Hue has never accepted blame for one thing.”
With the team 2-5-1, Jackson was replaced with defensive coordinator Gregg Williams for the remainder of the 2018 season and the Browns showed immediate improvement.
“I can’t think of any individual that I’ve worked with over the past 45 years that I spent as much time trying to help be successful as I did Hue Jackson,” Haslam said. “His third year, when our roster began to pretty dramatically improve, the eight games he coached we were 2-5-1. After Hue was dismissed, we went 5-3.”
Since purchasing the Browns for nearly $1 billion in 2012, the Haslams have fired five head coaches. Kevin Stefanski is their fifth full-time hire at the position.
Stefanski helped lead the team to the playoffs for the first time in 18 years in 2020, the lone winning season for the franchise under the Haslam’s watch.
“We’ve not done that, but we’re getting closer,” Haslam said. “[That goal of winning] has been the same regardless of the coach.”