Former Cleveland Browns coach Hue Jackson making comeback with Grambling State

Former Cleveland Browns head coach Hue Jackson is back where he belongs, coaching football. He’s the new head coach of the Grambling State University Tigers. 

Former Cleveland Browns head coach Hue Jackson is the new head coach of the Grambling State University Tigers. Browns fans may have different views of Jackson’s tenure in Cleveland.

January 31 is an unofficial state holiday in commemoration of his 1-31 record compiled in 2016-17. On the other hand, a lot of it wasn’t his fault. General manager Sashi Brown was so fixated on accumulating nice draft picks that he cut Joe Haden and absorbed an $11 million dollar salary cap hit, while also cutting competent veteran quarterbacks Josh McCown, Robert Griffin III, and Brock Osweiler while the team went 0-17.

These quarterbacks were not All-Stars but combined they won eight games as starters after leaving Cleveland, so let’s not say that these quarterbacks were incapable of winning or that 1-31 was the best that could possibly be accomplished.

Jackson had his playcalling responsibility taken away from him in 2018 and given to Todd Haley, the offensive coordinator. Now Haley is a professional offensive coordinator, but that’s not the point.

When the offensive coordinator has more power than the head coach, the head coach is no longer really in charge. That’s ridiculous.

Jackson should never have accepted that dysfunctional arrangement. The Browns were famous for having the general manager tell the offensive coordinator who to play at quarterback. The GM seemed to always be trying to be the coach, the coach was trying to be the GM, and ownership was trying to do everyone’s job, with a homeless guy calling the shots at the NFL draft, of course.

Dee Haslam put her foot down as Chair of Haslam Sports Group and got Jimmy to step back from day-to-day operations and truly clarified everyone’s job description the past two years. Reviewing the team history shows that not everything that went wrong was limited to the head coach.

Hue was a very friendly, people-oriented coach, who got his players to play hard under very difficult circumstances. What he can be faulted for, perhaps, is the desire to remain friendly with his old team after going to work for their AFC North rival Cincinnati Bengals immediately after getting fired in 2018.

Demanding hugs after the Bengals-Browns game was absurd, and then complaining that Baker Mayfield wasn’t interested was even more absurd, although, for whatever reason, many in the media wanted to take Jackson’s side on the hugging scandal. Come on, man! That entire episode was completely nuts and Jackson was completely in the wrong.

This writer was very rough on Jackson for that debacle, even going so far as to sponsor the satirical “Hugs for Hue” program via Dawg Pound Daily, in which DPD announced that after the next Bengals vs Browns game, fans would be allowed to line up by the visitor’s entrance to give their former coach a hug. We got a good laugh from that.

Similarly, even though Jackson has a legitimate beef with the Browns ownership and front office, nothing is accomplished by going to the media and attracting attention. What should have been made clear to both Sashi Brown and Jackson is that going winless is totally unacceptable in the NFL and merits the death penalty.

Evidently, they thought they had permission to go 0-16 to get the first overall draft pick and expected to survive, and in fact, Jackson actually did continue into 2018. Going winless should result in automatic termination in the NFL, for the front office, coaching staff, peanut vendors, everyone. You cannot humiliate the organization like that. It is a catastrophe.

No matter how much of the blame belongs to Sashi Brown and the Haslams, there’s nothing Jackson can say or do to make himself look good, and the more he tries, the more uncomfortable the situation becomes. It’s best to just accept it. Pointing fingers just makes it worse. Yes, he got too much of the blame. But he was part of a historically bad run and made some contribution to it. There’s nothing to brag about here.

Nevertheless, many fans including this one have no long-standing ill will towards the former coach and nothing but well wishes in this new endeavor. For those who do not know, Grambling has a very rich heritage as one of the nation’s preeminent Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), especially in regards to sporting tradition.

Eddie Robinson is recognized as one of the great football coaches in college football history, persevering at a time when the southern United States was segregated according to race. Under Robinson, from 1946 to 1997, the Grambling Tigers became a fearsome football power.

Four NFL Hall of Famers came from that program, including Willie Davis, who was drafted by the Browns and then traded to the Green Bay Packers; Willie Brown (Denver, Oakland), Buck Buchanan (Chiefs), and Charlie Joiner (Bengals, Chargers). Other major stars included Super Bowl MVP Doug Williams (Tampa, Washington), James Harris (Rams, Chargers), Andrew Glover (Raiders, Vikings, Saints), Essex Johnson (Bengals), Everson Walls (a four-time Pro Bowler with Dallas who closed out his career with the Browns), Mike St. Clair (Browns), and Jake Reed (Vikings) among others.

That’s truly amazing considering Grambling is an FCS (formerly Division I-AA) program.

There’s another coach who is headed to Louisiana this year. That would be Brian Kelly, former University of Cincinnati Bearcat Coach, who is headed to Louisiana State University after twelve seasons at the University of Notre Dame. Kelly is getting a lot more money than Jackson. They rolled out the red carpet and $95 million dollars for him.

Then he went and made a fool of himself on national TV by trying to speak with a Cajun accent. The critics have had a field day. If I were an LSU writer I would concoct something special for him, perhaps a satire that the LSU administration is hiring a professional accent coach for him or something. Laissez les bontemps roulez! Let the good times roll, man!

Let that be a lesson. Those Louisiana people appreciate real people. Don’t pretend to be someone that you’re not. Tell you what, I don’t care how much money Brian Kelly is getting, I’d much rather be Hue Jackson in his current position.

Kelly was a screwed-up hire from the get-go. Notre Dame was insane to let him go, because they think their birthright is to be in the Final Four every year. Yet he’s too old for a new gig. If first impressions count, he is off to the worst first impression in history.

Jackson, on the other hand, does fine. His strong point is communication, which will serve him well in recruiting young players. The underdog mentality, believe it or not, could actually be an asset, because that is a major part of Grambling’s history.

They have been the ultimate underdog over the years and have beaten the odds time and again. Jackson belongs in coaching, and college is the perfect place for him. Good luck to him.