It’s safe to say that the Browns are now well past that whole 1-31 stretch led by Hue Jackson, but Cleveland’s players haven’t quite gotten over their time playing under their former head coach.
Baker Mayfield’s beef with Jackson has been well documented, but he wasn’t the only Browns player who felt slighted by the coach, who embarked on a defensive media tour after his firing. During an appearance on The Rich Eisen Show, star TE David Njoku said his quarterback’s issues with Jackson were, in fact, representative of the general feel of the Browns locker room.
“Well obviously we weren’t happy with what Hue said about us after he left. It is what it is. Baker didn’t appreciate it. We came together after Hue left and took it upon ourselves to work extra hard to finish the year strong… Baker has a voice — as we all do — and he didn’t appreciate what happened. It’s not like we’re robots. We felt, in a way, disrespected.”
Following his firing, Jackson made an appearance on ESPN’s First Take and held interviews with several media outlets. He took some blame for the Browns’ poor record but did point to deficiencies in personnel as a reason for that 1-31 stretch.
Jackson also seemed to lament that Cleveland passed on Deshaun Watson, Carson Wentz and Patrick Mahomes only to end up with Baker Mayfield.
“We passed on three franchise QBs the first two years in Wentz, Watson and Mahomes. We played with a QB room with zero wins in the league. We played with street free agents and practice squad players in WRs. Yet our offense was the same or better than what we were doing this year. There is no way that should happen.
“You can’t pass on quarterbacks. You never pass on a potential franchise quarterback because you don’t know who’s going to be there in the future. I think Baker Mayfield is going to be a sensational player if they surround him with the right people, but they’ve got to give him help and run a scheme suited to his skill set.”
It’s certainly understandable why Jackson’s former players, and Mayfield especially, are still holding a grudge a year later. And given the ugliness of the breakup and the results, it’s unlikely that Jackson will ever get an opportunity to lead an NFL locker room ever again. On paper, the Browns should be headed for bigger and better things in 2019.
