Browns head coach Hue Jackson spent two years, 2008- 09, as Baltimore’s quarterbacks coach, coming to the Ravens immediately following Brian Billick being fired as head coach after his teams posted five- and six-win finishes in two of his final three seasons.
So I’m sure Jackson has heard all the Billick stories, including the ones about Billick’s Ravens being pretty mediocre offensively even though he came to the team with the reputation of being an offensive genius. He had the same genius as a offensive coach as Joe Banner had as a team president of the Browns. Billick’s 2000 Ravens team that won the Super Bowl – as with all of the good clubs he had during his tenure – won entirely on the backs of a great defense, with which he had nothing to do.
The Ravens won in spite of Billick’s anemic offenses.
As such, every time Billick, now working as an analyst for NFL Network, opens his mouth about anything football-related, I take it with a grain of salt – a grain of salt so small that its size is that of his success with the Ravens offense. It would be like your 93-year-old grandmother talking about weightlifting, the internet or servicing large truck engines. You smile, listen politely and nod your head.
I’m writing about Billick, of course, because of his recent tweet suggesting that the Browns could go through the 2016 season without a win. It would have been like Jackson suggesting before the 2000 season that Billick’s Ravens would go five straight weeks without scoring any offensive touchdowns. Whoops! Jackson would have been right.
Billick might be right, too. The Browns may go 0-for-2016. They are certainly not going to win many games.
But that’s not the point of this piece. It is that the mindless Billick may have unknowingly given Jackson the kind of critical drivel he needs to really inspire his team.
Billick is certainly not the first to suggest that the Browns, who have cleaned house and are rebuilding from the ground up, will struggle mightily this year. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. Even Banner, whose constant tweeting could be substituted for Novocaine, might jump on board with that well-worn contention.
However, Billick is the most recent critic and his comments have the most significant timing in that they come just days before Sunday’s regular-season opener between the Browns and Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field.
So while Jackson has surely been reminding his players all along that everybody in the football world thinks they will have a bad season, Billick’s criticism provides a heaping dose of negativism to use in these final days. If this were a court trial and Jackson was an attorney, then he now has the material for his closing argument.
And don’t think for a moment that he’ll hold off on using it.
Here’s what Jackson had to say about Billick’s tweet on Wednesday when asked about it at his press conference:
“Who said what (laughter)? Wow. Good for him. I didn’t know he worked here (laughter). I’m just being honest. Nothing to Brian, but I think it is really interesting that everybody can comment on other people’s teams and don’t even understand their inner workings.
“I have great respect for Brian. He was a great coach in this league. We will see if that’s true. We will see if what he said is true. We will look back in 16 games and see if it is right, but I’m not going to get caught up in that.
“Obviously, I think you guys know my competitiveness. I don’t want anybody to say we can’t win anything. I just don’t think that is right. I don’t think it is fair. At the same time, I know how hard these guys work, I know what the expectation is and we have to go prove it. Me talking about it is not going to change it. The only thing that is going to change it is what we do on the field.”
Speaking of what happens on the field, in 2008, Jackson’s first year in Baltimore, the Ravens scored 385 points, or 110 more than they did in Billick’s final season in ’07. The following season – Jackson’s last in Baltimore – the Ravens scored 391 points. Those are the two highest point totals in back-to-back seasons in club history.
Just sayin’.
