Cleveland Browns: 5 biggest in-season mistakes entering Bye Week

2. Pairing Hue and Haley

There’s only a few people who really know what happened between Todd Haley and Hue Jackson.

The story Jackson spins comes from The MMQB’s Robert Klemko, who wrote about how Jackson removed himself from the offensive installation process after Haley was hired.

If this isn’t a face palm, what is?

It would make sense for Jackson, who’s the head coach that if offensively oriented, to at least be in the room to serve as a sounding board for his offensive coordinator.

Jackson stated numerous times after he was fired that he hired Haley and gave him autonomy to run the offense. Yet, in the same ESPN interview, the former head coach said that if he had one regret, it’d be that he gave the offense up to Haley.

This point dives further into why Jackson was retained as head coach to start the year.

The pairing of Jackson and Haley still comes across like a shotgun marriage because even though Jackson ultimately decided to hire Haley, he had to give up the thing he loves to do most, which is call plays.

All the while, as the tug-of-war between Haley and Jackson continued through the season, Baker Mayfield was regressing from his first two appearances on the field (Jets, Raiders), while words like “internal discord” were feeding the rumor mill in Berea.

In Mayfield’s first six games, the rookie was sacked 20 times while completing 5 percent of his throws. With Kitchens, a man who’s never called plays in an NFL game before, except for a stint in a preseason game against the Lions, Mayfield was sacked just twice in two games, while completing 74 percent of this passes!