Hue Jackson keeps losing

BROWNS ARE SPITTING-MAD AT HUE

By STEVE KING

You’ve read it here any number of times before, and never was it more applicable than the days leading into Sunday’s game between the Browns and Cincinnati Bengals at Paul Brown Stadium.

That is, don’t listen so much to what the players and coaches say, but instead listen intently to the way they say it, and the way they don’t say it.

The Browns players and coaches made it very clear last week – in so many words — that they want to stick it to former Cleveland head coach Hue Jackson. Oh, man, do they ever want to stick it to him. They want to stick it to him as much – or more – that they want to take their next breath.

And the way for them to do it is by beating the Bengals – actually, not just beating them, but beating them decisively, just as they did the Atlanta Falcons two weeks ago to the tune of 28-16. And it wasn’t nearly that close.

Why do the Browns want to get back at Jackson?

Because, obviously, of what he did, going to the AFC North rival Bengals as assistant to the head coach a couple weeks after being fired by the Browns, and just two weeks before the teams were to play in Cincinnati.

So, in essence, Jackson is being paid by the Browns to not only coach against them, but to literally spill his guts about all of his former team’s secrets to his longtime buddy and partner in crime, Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis.

This exact type of thing – a fired head coach going to a division rival as an assistant not just in the same season, but in the veritable blink of an eye, and just two weeks ahead of those clubs playing one another – is unprecedented in NFL history. And the league is nearly 100 years old.

Also, did we mention that Jackson is doing all this to an owner, the Browns’ Jimmy Haslam, who stuck behind him and demanded that the coach be given a third season to prove himself even though he was just 1-31 in 2016 and ’17 combined?

So, yeah, Haslam wants the Browns to stick it to Jackson, too. You had better believe he does.

When Jackson was here, he talked often about loyalty and the brotherhood that exists within a team.

The Browns want to show him how strong their loyalty and brotherhood really is, and how he spat upon it by what he did.

Then they played:

The Browns had a ball on Sunday at Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati.

And as it turned out, so did former Browns head coach Hue Jackson.

Cleveland cornerback Damarious Randall intercepted an Andy Dalton pass in the second quarter near the Bengals bench. Randall quickly got knocked out of bounds near where Jackson, who, a couple weeks after getting fired by the Browns, was hired by Cincinnati as assistant to the head coach, and handed him the ball.

 

DAMARIOUS RANDALL WITH THE TAKEAWAY‼️ pic.twitter.com/YWaYezuNfh

— Cleveland Browns (@Browns) November 25, 2018

Jackson gently patted him on the back, but the Browns sucker-punched their former boss, winning 35-20 to get their first road triumph since 2015. They blew out to a 28-0 halftime lead, their largest advantage at the break since 1991, and still were ahead 35-7 early in the third quarter before the Bengals rallied to make it closer – much closer – than it should have been.

The Browns dominated every facet of play in going ahead twice by 28 points and, if the truth be told, all those young players got giddy about that and then relaxed, allowing the Bengals to make a furious comeback that fell just short when they twice turned over the ball on downs deep in Cleveland territory in the final minutes.

But, despite the sloppy finish, the Browns made their point. They did not like at all what Jackson did by betraying them and exchanging colors – at least one color, brown for black, as both teams sport orange – within the AFC North. What he did is not only sleazy, but it’s also unprecedented in NFL history.

Ad how the Browns responded to that indiscretion is unprecedented, too, in many ways, at least in their nightmarish recent history in this nightmarish expansion era.

Jackson has a big part in that disaster chapter in Browns history, going 1-31 over a two-season span, including an especially embarrassing 0-16 mark in 2017. That the Bengals may want to hire him if their head coach, Marvin Lewis, resigns/retires soon, quite possibly at the end of this season or next, is a clear indication of just where that clueless organization is.

I know Marvin is not going to make anyone forget Paul Brown, but is he on somewhat of a par with Hue? I think not.

But enough about what is going on in Cincinnati with Hapless Hue and Mediocre Marvin. Who cares?

It’s much important what is going on in Cleveland. The Browns, who won their second straight for the first time since midway through the 2014 season, have improved to 4-6-1 and further ensconced themselves in the race for an AFC wild-card playoff spot. That’s right, you heard that correctly, it’s past Thanksgiving and the Browns are in the postseason hunt. They are just a half-game behind the Bengals, who have dropped three straight and five of six to tumble to 5-6 after a 4-1 start.

In reality, the Browns aren’t going to make the playoffs. Let’s just make that clear. But the fact we’re talking about that possibility at this point of the year is a dose of reality as well. That is, these aren’t Hue Jackson’s Browns anymore – in more ways than one.

This is a team that has an average margin of victory of 13.5 points in its last two games and, with a revamped offense fueled by Baker Mayfield’s bonding with new offensive coordinator Freddie Kitchens (did you hear that, Hue?) and a defense that has gotten much better with much better health, is the club that no one – absolutely no one – wants to play right now.

And the Bengals? They’re now 0-2 since Hue joined them.

Hue Jackson keeps losing.

That’s proof that sometimes a team’s best addition is by subtraction.

Which inspires this final thought: as the Browns hand out game balls for their win over the Bengals, perhaps they ought to give one – or, as it were, another one – to Hue Jackson. He sure earned it, them.

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