Cleveland Browns: Hue Jackson contradicts himself on Colin Kaepernick

Former Cleveland Browns head coach Hue Jackson claims to have wanted Colin Kaepernick.

It turns out you don’t need to constantly comment on every little thing. That’s something former Cleveland Browns head coach should learn. In a conversation with the News Herald, Hue Jackson claims he wanted to sign former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick after he opted out his contract after the 2016 season.

Kaepernick had fallen off after former 49er head coach Jim Harbaugh left San Francisco, leaving Kaepernick’s play to decline. Never an accurate passer, and only having a strong season and a half to his name, his career took a drastic turn when he started a league-wide protest in 2016 that coincided his 1-10 season as the 49ers starter.

Kaepernick had one year option left on his contract, which he declined in order to test his value on the free-agent market. No one was really interested at the price he was posting. The Seattle Seahawks and Baltimore Ravens brought him in but rumors abound as to why they passed on signing him.

Ultimately the now-defunct AAF wanted him, but Kapernick allegedly wanted north of $20 million dollars, which the league was not willing to provide. Eventually, he would find himself out of football entirely and won what many claim to be a paltry sum from the NFL in a discrimination lawsuit that was settled out of court.

Jackson claims that he wanted Kapernick all along. Jackson told News Herald just that.

"I wanted him. It just didn’t work out. Obviously, those things do have to work from a finance, draft, whatever all that is. And that wasn’t my decision. …I’ve known Colin. When I was with the Raiders [in 2011], we were going to draft him when I was there. So, obviously he’d been a really good player in the league. He had tremendous success. He is a guy who has stood for something. I think everybody is seeing exactly where he was coming from … I always thought Colin deserved an opportunity in this league, but he has to want to play. If he really wanted to play, I think he would have a chance again."

Yet, Jackson, known for fluffing the truth a bit, contradicted himself, telling ESPN;

"We haven’t really discussed Colin. There are other players at this point that we’ve really had a lot of conversation about to see if we can put on our team. Not saying that it won’t come up later on. I think you have to exhaust everything you’re doing. But at this point, he hasn’t come up that much."

For his part, Browns owner Jimmy Haslem claimed that he would be fine with Kapernick on the team, as with anyone, as long as the coaches thought they were someone who could help the team. While it’s all fine and good to be skeptical, it’s also unfair to assume someone is lying unless there’s a staunch record of it happening.

Either way, Kaepernick’s play wasn’t getting anyone excited, and the Browns made the right move in passing on his talents, but for Jackson to now contradict his own words further shows just what kind of man he really is. Whether you support or dislike Kaepernick is irrelevant. For Jackson to constantly rewrite history and almost always receive positive feedback from the ESPN‘s of the world is beyond confusing.

This isn’t the first time, nor will it be the last time, that Jackson has rewritten the events of his tenure of a Browns head coach.