It is on the back burner for now with free agency still going on, the NFL Draft less than a month away and the fact that the start of the regular season is still over five months off, but Browns owner Jimmy Haslam’s controversial – and criticized in a number of circles – decision to retain beleaguered, beaten and bruised head coach Hue Jackson will be front and center when the games start counting in the standings.

As mentioned, that won’t be for a long time, until the kids head back to school after summer vacation, and they still have two months left in this school year. So a lot will happen between now and then to impact that decision.

But at some point, that decision, about which he was asked at the annual NFL owners meetings, will be a major defining moment in Haslam’s ownership reign.

If it works out and the Browns start winning, and eventually win big — – if he was right when he saw Jackson’s ability as a head coach despite the black clouds of a historically-bad 1-31 record the last two seasons – then Haslam will be labeled as a genius. He would have stayed the course when there was every reason under the sun to go in a different direction.

But if it doesn’t work out and the Browns keep losing, and losing big – if Haslam couldn’t see what everybody else saw in Jackson as a coach who was overmatched and made far too many crucial game-day coaching errors that cost his team greatly – then Haslam will be labeled as an out-and-out buffoon. His improvement as an owner in the last year or so, slow but sure, will suddenly take a nosedive and he will be right back to where he was in the first part of his tenure as a clueless knucklehead who should have stuck to running truck stops.

There will be no in-between on this one. It’s either, or. It’s high-risk, high-reward.

So what do think it will be? What do you think will happen?

I’ll let you know what I think – what my prediction is – in my next post.