Hue Jackson getting paid to lose is the most Cleveland Browns thing (*Updated*)

The Cleveland Browns paid Hue Jackson to lose because of course they did.

Sometimes you just know a story is true. There doesn’t need to be details or any facts presented, you just hear the headline and you just nod “yup, that’s true.” That’s what we have here today, a story that is just so outlandish, that you know it’s true. Hue Jackson was paid to lose by the Cleveland Browns.

There isn’t a single person who isn’t just going “nope, I believe that.” Of course, he was paid to lose. This whole revelation came forward when it was revealed that Brian Flores, the former Miami Dolphins coach, spoke out and said he was paid to lose in 2019 with the Dolphins. Flores was reportedly paid to the tune of $100,000 per loss ($1.1 million in total). This was a hot-button topic, and Jackson, who was the coach of the Browns for three seasons where he went 3-36-1 over his 41 games with the team, also spoke up and said he was paid to lose while with the Browns as well.

Jackson commented on Twitter that as long as they were losing, team owner Jimmy Haslem was happy and that the amount he got from Haslem was apparently “a good number”.

Kimberley Diemer, who is apparently the executive director of Jackson’s foundation according to NBC Sports, outright claims that Sashi Brown, Paul DePodesta, and Andrew Berry all received bonuses alongside Jackson for losing during their time leading the club in 2016 and 2017.

Whether they purposefully threw games or not isn’t known but should be investigated.

Nobody associated with the Cleveland Browns looks good in this scandal

Flores is filing a class-action lawsuit against the NFL and three teams (The Giants, Dolphins, and Broncos) for discriminatory practices and there are some who believe that this could include more ex-coaches. Jackson may be or may not be one of them. No one knows for sure.

What we do know is that for the Browns specifically, this isn’t a good look. There’s nothing to say that the Browns did anything illegal, it’s certainly not a crime to not do your best at work, and teams suck all the time in their quest to rebuild themselves. That doesn’t mean the Browns look good in the process. This is a team maligned for years due to their practices, and then they march out a 1-31 squad?

We all knew they were trying to lose, they cut so many players and relied on so many rookies that it was obvious they were rebuilding. Yet, to find out that Jackson may have purposefully coached his way into losses? That may be actually worse than being bad at your job.

If the team is just bad but you’re doing your best, ok, but to now wonder if you purposefully threw games for money? Yikes, talk about a career-ender.

While the Flores case deserves to be sussed out and explored, no one can really justify throwing games. If Jackson, Flores and whoever else has been paid, knowingly threw games to line their pockets, each and every owner, GM and coach should be investigated.

For Jackson, he may have just destroyed whatever credibility he had left. Jackson proved that he was far more willing to collect over $3 million in bonus money for losing than he was for putting his best foot forward.

Then when he was expected to win, he still couldn’t.

While it may be an acceptable business practice for owners, it’s not something fans are going to get behind. How many losses in that embarrassing 0-16 season could have been avoided? How many times did Jackson purposefully call a bad play? How many times did he hang this team out to dry so he could line his pockets?

While some will try to defend his actions, at the end of the day it’s about the fans and the fans deserved better than an ownership and coach who were absolutely ok with trying to lose. Both Browns owner Jimmy Haslem and Jackson should be lambasted for stealing money from fans.

The saddest part about fans getting robbed by the Browns is that Haslem has a history of stealing money from people. So we really shouldn’t have been surprised.

(*Update*)

The Browns have responded, denying all of Jackson’s claims. The quote is from Yahoo writer Charles Robinson;

"The recent comments by Hue Jackson and his representatives relating to his tenure as our head coach are completely fabricated. Any accusation that any member of our organization was incentivized to deliberately lose games is categorically false."