Hue Jackson thinks Baker Mayfield cost him his job
By Cody Rivera
After the Cleveland Browns finally relieved Hue Jackson of his head coaching duties, Jackson has decided to point fingers at Baker Mayfield.
Hue Jackson has made plenty of headlines over the last few years, but they have rarely been for good reasons.
After an utter disaster of a tenure as the head coach of the Cleveland Browns that lasted from 2016 through the first half of the 2018 season, the organization finally decided it was time to let Jackson go. The decision came this past Monday, just one day after the Browns fell 33-18 to their division rival Pittsburgh Steelers to drop to 2-5-1.
The decision to fire Jackson was very long overdue. But now that it finally happened, Jackson seems to be looking for places to lay blame. And if you ask me, he’s looking in the wrong places.
The Browns said the decision was a result of “internal discord,” but Jackson said he thinks it’s mostly about Cleveland’s rookie quarterback Baker Mayfield, whom they selected with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft.
“I think when you stop and look at it, it’s truly, really about Baker Mayfield,” Jackson said on ESPN First Take, via ESPN.com. “I think they want to do everything they can to put him in the situation … I mean, you got the first pick in the draft — who I think is going to be a franchise quarterback, who’s going to be a sensational player — and he’s not playing as well.
“So again, here is the perfect storm to move forward and move on.”
If Jackson wants to believe Mayfield was the reason he was fired, he’s entitled to his opinion. But the real reason behind the decision to let him go was probably mostly to do with the fact that Jackson had taken an already downtrodden franchise and hammered it even further into the ground than it already was. In his first two seasons as coach, the Browns went 1-31 including an 0-16 season in 2017.
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Mayfield actually brought a glimmer of hope to an organization and a fan base that had seen very little of that during Jackson’s atrocious tenure. But if Jackson wants to try and defend the fact that he was a terrible coach by trying to avert the attention toward Mayfield, I guess he can do what he wants.