You’ve read it here any number of times and you have no doubt also read or heard it elsewhere that the head coach of a football team and his starting quarterback have the most important relationship in team sports. It must be that of a professional marriage.
They can dicker and go back and forth all they want behind closed doors. In fact, it’s healthy to do so, for it clears the air. And you need to have clear air.
But at the end of the day, they come out in public and put on a united front. They’re on the same page on everything. They have each other’s backs.
If the head coach and quarterback – the two most important parts of any football team – can’t get along, then that squad has no chance of being consistently successful. No rocky marriage does.
While the Browns continue to sort out their quarterback issues and try to find their franchise guy, what they already have going for them is that head coach Hue Jackson and starting quarterback DeShone Kizer have a professional marriage. That became apparent by what was said – and not said – coming out of the botched goal-line situation at the end of the first half in Sunday’s 38-24 loss to the Detroit Lions at Ford Field.
Asked about Kizer audiblizing out of the play that Jackson calle and trying to run a quarterback sneak that was stopped way short of the end zone, after which the clock ran out before they could run another play, Jackson said in his press conference on Monday, “I take responsibility for it. Again, let’s just put that one to bed. It is on me. It is not on DeShone. It is not on the offensive unit.
“I coach the offensive unit. I coach the quarterback. As I said yesterday, I am not going to back off that. Totally on me. Not on him. Whatever we think he should have done or could have done stems from my teaching of him. I take full responsibility for it.”
He added, “I have to do a better job of coaching. Have to do a better job of coaching. It is just that simple. I do not want to get into what I am going to do. None of that matters. Yesterday we made a mistake. We owned it. I owned it. Does not matter. I owned it. That is it. I will get better and do better. Whatever you guys want to write or say, that is what it will be. We will get it better.”
But also on Monday, Kizer stuck up for Jackson, saying, “At the end of the day, the offense is 100 percent driven by me. I am the one who is out there taking Coach’s game plan, taking all of his preparations, taking it all out there and trying to be the coach on the field. All of those situations that he wants to take the blame for I think can equally be put on myself to make sure I am doing whatever I can in the week of practice, the preparation and everything that goes into the specific situations he keeps addressing to make sure that the guys around me have the right mindset and have the right guidance from the leadership role in this offense to go out and execute the way that we should.”
Whew! That last one is a long sentence. But you get the idea. Hue and Kizer are joined at the hip, and that’s the way it should be – has to be.
