Hue Jackson to play starters in Cleveland Browns final preseason game

The Cleveland Browns need all the work they can get, which is why head coach Hue Jackson will play the starters on Thursday night against Chicago.

Cleveland Browns head coach Hue Jackson is not a happy man.

The Browns are 0-3 so far in the preseason, not a big deal, but have looked very poor in games against the Green Bay Packers, Atlanta Falcons and Tampa Bay Buccaneers – a very big deal indeed.

Which is why he is planning to have the starters on the field for at least part of Thursday night’s final preseason game when the Browns host the Chicago Bears at FirstEnergy Stadium.

“We need to get better as a football team as we continue to move forward.” – Hue Jackson

“We are going to play our guys. I feel comfortable that we need to play our starters on both sides of the ball,” Jackson said after practice on Monday. “Now, how much they play, that is yet to be determined by me, but I think we are going to play them because we need to play. We need to get better as a football team as we continue to move forward.”

Jackson is taking a risk here as most NFL teams will be sitting their front-line players on Thursday night. The majority of the players who will be taking the field for the Bears will be fringe players looking to make a final impression on not only Chicago’s coaching staff, but the rest of league who may be looking to pick up a player after the final roster cuts on Saturday.

And what better way to make a highlight than by delivering a major hit on a big-name player like Robert Griffin III? If Griffin or another valuable player goes down with an injury, Jackson will have to answer questions a little tougher than why the team traded away its punter.

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The flip side is that the Browns need all the work they can get as the season’s first game is less than two weeks away.

The offense has struggled to find any consistency as the center and right tackle position remain works in progress; the top wide receiver trio of Josh Gordon, Corey Coleman and Terrelle Pryor have barely played together due to injury; and Griffin has looked good on five deep throws but has only passed for 67 yards on his 13 other completions.

As for the defense, they can’t stop the run, they can’t stop the pass and seemingly no one can tackle anyone. But other than that, things are fine because it is Ray Horton running the defense instead of Jim O’Neil.

“Obviously, since we made several changes on defense, we want to keep on looking. I feel pretty good about where we are offensively. I just think we need to fine tune some things and get better at some things,” Jackson said. “Obviously, there was a starter that was removed from our defensive football team. We are going to look and I need to make sure that we are doing the things that we need to do to be successful over there on defense.”

Judging from the way the defense has played, and from Jackson’s comments, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Browns top defensive players on the field longer than their counterparts on offense against the Bears.

The move to play the starters – even for just a series or two – doesn’t come without risks, but it is a move that the Browns need to make as they continue the current rebuilding efforts.

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“Even though I like to win at everything that I do, I do understand that there is a process that we are in right now,” Jackson said. “Now next week, you ask me that, it might be a different story. I might be up here throwing things. What is important is that we keep evaluating our team so that we can ensure that we have the best team here as we move into the season.”