Browns owner Jimmy Haslam fired coach Hue Jackson yesterday, but he’s fired a lot of coaches before.
And in a moment of something resembling accountability (even if he didn’t mean it), Haslam laid the responsibility at his own feet, where it probably belongs.
“I will accept the blame because, ultimately, it is the person at the head of the ship,” Haslam said, via Pat McManamon of ESPN.com. “I will take the blame as ownership. I can’t explain it more than that. We have had different situations with different people. I know that it is something that we are not going to tolerate moving forward.”
Since Haslam’s purchase of the Browns officially closed midway through the 2012 season, the Browns are 21-75-1 (.216). That record is actually buoyed by their 4-5 finish to the season he inherited from Randy Lerner, meaning they have a .188 winning percentage since then. Under former owner Randy Lerner, their record was 57-110 (.341).
So while Hue Jackson’s 3-36-1 record (.088) is bad, it’s merely below average during the Haslam years. Interim Gregg Williams will be his fifth coach, and the next coach he hires will be his sixth.
All the bad football would be bad enough on its own, even without the fraud lawsuit against Haslam’s Flying J company executives (which he’s not personally involved in).
“This is not a throwing in of the towel,” Haslam said of firing Jackson. “It is a rebooting, if you will, an opportunity to give them a fresh start these last eight games.”
It’s a reasonable statement, at least if you believe the executive in charge of the reboot knows how to run the machine.
