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Despite winning just three times in nearly 40 games as head coach of the Cleveland Browns, Hue Jackson didn’t see his pink slip coming.
Jackson, who was fired Monday after a 33-18 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers that dropped the team to 2-5-1, made his first public comments since being let go.
“I was surprised,” Jackson, 53, told Cleveland.com on Thursday from his Cleveland home. “I’m not going to say just totally blindsided because there was just so much noise out there about what was going on with our football team that I thought was not true. But anytime there’s all these undercurrents going, there’s something in there.”
Jackson said the firing was a “hard pill to swallow” after two-plus seasons at the helm in Cleveland, where he had just one win in his first two seasons and an overall mark of 3-36-1.
Jackson acknowledged that the offense was indeed sputtering, ranked 19th in the league in net total yards. There were also reports that Jackson and offensive coordinator Todd Haley, who was also fired, were fighting behind the scenes over the direction of the offense and that was affecting the progress of No. 1 pick Baker Mayfield.
Jackson said he was hoping to get more control of the team after Sunday’s loss by persuading owner Jimmy Haslam and Browns brass to hand over the keys to the offense from Haley. Jackson still denies any issues with Haley.
“So I get that they had a tough decision to make and they felt they did what was in the best interest of the organization going forward,” Jackson said. “Now in regard to some of the other media stuff about internally things being a mess and losing the players — none of that is accurate at all.”
Instead, Jackson insisted the team had “a lot of football left” to play this season and could’ve easily been 3-4-1 had a crucial call gone the Browns’ way in Oakland.
“The fact that we played four overtime games says that we were a better football team,” Jackson said. “In my mind, if we fix the offense — it’s a totally different story. So I do believe the move was premature. But I think a part of the problem again went back to the first two years.”
In 2016, the Browns finished with a 1-15 record — and the misery only increased last year when the team went 0-16 to become just the second team ever with such a dubious record.
But Jackson refused to take blame for the team’s inability to win games, saying he was “never able to actually run my offense” during those first two years because they lacked talent on the field.
“What everybody saw the first two years was not a Hue Jackson offense,” he said. “And the people, players, and coaches that know me know that was the case. I had to do on offense what was necessary to be competitive each week. And we were.”
And once he had more talent this season, the play-calling was given to Haley.
“Our numbers this year were the same or worse than our numbers last year with better players on offense. So it was already tough for me to give up play-calling when I knew more talent was on the way with John Dorsey on board,” Jackson said. “Of course I wanted to remind everybody what a Hue Jackson-led offense looks like, but I felt they wanted me to focus on coaching the whole team and let someone else call the plays.”
To Jackson, conquering Cleveland is something like the “Mount Everest of the NFL,” an extremely difficult task that’s not for everyone.
“But if you can conquer it, your legacy becomes cemented,” he continued. “Many good coaches have taken a crack at it before me. I hope more good coaches line up to take a crack at it after me. It is one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done, a history of losing has a tremendous impact on an organization. But I took my shot at it. If there’s any regret I have, it’s not really being able to build on offense the way I envisioned from day one.”
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