By STEVE KING
Though we may not always be willing to admit, we all care – deeply – about our legacies – that is, what we will leave behind, and how we will be judged by others, when we’re gone.
That’s true even for despicable, soul-devoid, selfish, traitors like former Browns head coach, and now Cincinnati Bengals assistant to the head coach, “Hapless” Hue Jackson, who will make his first trip back to Cleveland in his new role when the teams meet on Sunday at FirstEnergy Stadium in the Browns’ home finale.
Hue’s legacy, at least professionally?
It is that he unknowingly re-ignited a long-since cooled rivalry between the Browns and Bengals.
It once was fiery hot. In 1970, when the NFL-AFL merger was completed and the two teams were placed into the new AFC Central with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Houston Oilers and began playing each other twice a year, every year, Browns-Bengals was a really big deal, for it was the collision of the two teams birthed by Paul Brown, and the man, Browns owner Art Modell, who dared to fire him in Cleveland. Because the team is named for Brown, it was like the Macy department store chain throwing Mr. Macy out the front door.
But that rivalry pretty much went by the wayside when the two men – first Brown and then Modell — did the same with their passing.
When, however, Jackson pulled a Benedict Arnold, switched sides and went to the Bengals not long after being fired by the Browns midway through this season, he tossed gallons upon gallons of gasoline and a blow-torch into the fire, stoking it into a raging, white-hot inferno.
Indeed, game on.
What Jackson did had never been done before in that exact manner in pro football history.
It infuriated the Browns players – and likely also all of their coaches – that the man who asked for their heart and loyalty was so quick to pledge his to the enemy.
And it infuriated them even more – and the Browns fans as well – when Hue’s buddy, befuddled Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis, dismissed out of hand the move – and any conversation about it – when the two teams met shortly thereafter, about a month ago, in Cincinnati.
The angry Browns, in an emotional effort, laid the Bengals flat, winning 35-20 in a game that was not nearly that close. The Bengals staged a late comeback only when the Browns accidentally took their foot off the gas pedal after blowing out to a big first-half lead.
The Browns would like to do the same thing on Sunday – minus the comeback, of course — and sweep the season series for the first time since 2002, which is the last time they made the playoffs.
And if the Browns do so, then the Bengals have only themselves – and Hue and Marvin, specifically – to blame.
In any event, though, the increased tensions on Sunday, and the fact that Browns-Bengals really, truly means something and has sizzle again, is due to Hue Jackson.
For a man who has done absolutely nothing else in his career of which he can be proud, that, then, is his crowning achievement – despite the fact that the bumbling, jabbering, incompetent boob of a coach had no idea he was doing it and, in his ignorance, probably doesn’t even understand it now.
But I’m sure the Browns and, more specifically, the fans, will clearly and loudly remind him of it on Sunday.
