Sir, Please Leave Us Alone
Hue Jackson failed to produce the receipts, so he should stop talking like he ever will.
I learned a long time ago from a Marionaire much tougher than me that if you get into an altercation with a stranger on the street, they’re not going to exchange many words before they walk up to you and punch you in the jaw.
If the strangers does anything other than that in the first 10 seconds, they simply want to puff their chests out and maintain some sort of idiotic pride from the encounter.
Former Browns coach Hue Jackson is the latter. Jackson is currently coaching Grambling State but he couldn’t resist inserting himself into the news of former Dolphins coach Brian Flores filing a lawsuit alleging systemic racism in the NFL’s coach hiring process.
Jackson, on the eve of National Signing Day — one of the most important calendar dates for college coaches — insinuated that Browns owner Jimmy Haslam paid him bonus money to lose games.
Here is one exchange:
Kimberly Diemert, the executive director of Hue Jackson’s foundation, went even further in claiming the duo had receipts.


Though it’s smart for teams in the Dolphins’ or Browns’ positions to tank, it would be a federal crime to bribe their coaches to lose games.
From Mike Florio of profootballtalk.com:
While appearing on Dan Abrams’s SiriusXM POTUS 124 show earlier in the hour, we discussed the possibility of a prosecutor convening a grand jury on the specific question of whether Dolphins owner Stephen Ross or Browns owner Jimmy Haslam bribed coaches and/or others to deliberately lose football games. Flores has accused Ross of offering $100,000 per loss; former Browns coach Hue Jackson has suggested that Haslam did something similar.
The Sports Bribery Act criminalizes such conduct. Under 18 U.S.C. § 224, “Whoever carries into effect, attempts to carry into effect, or conspires with any other person to carry into effect any scheme in commence to influence, in any way, by bribery any sporting contest, with knowledge of the purpose of such scheme is to influence by bribery that contests, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.”
Jackson’s previously claimed that the Browns extended his contract in secret during the franchise’s historic losing streak. That would make a lot more sense is he was dutifully performing his duty of coaching to lose.
I’d love to see the blast radius of Stephen Ross’ crimes in Miami take down our crooked owner in Cleveland. But odious criminals like Haslam do not fall on allegations alone, even if they’re easy to believe.
But Haslam has a history of ripping off his own customers. Why wouldn’t he see Browns fans as anything but a bunch of easy marks for his next scheme?
Sadly, Jackson has once again failed to show any of the proof he swears he has. He bizarrely went on ESPN SportsCenter and Joy Reid’s MSNBC show(!?) last night—again, on National Signing Day—and walked back his claims that he had been bribed to lose games in Cleveland.

It’s probably because there would be no way to prove to a jury of random citizens that he was actually trying to win games when we “go watch the tape,” as Jackson loved to say during his disastrous tenure.
I’m not sure what it is about Cleveland that makes tepid losers like Jackson and Johnny Manziel hold grudges against the Browns and the City of Cleveland as a concept. It probably has something to do with our fans saying mean things about them on the internet and sports radio.
I simply would have footballed better, but I must be built different.
I can handle Jackson’s potshots at the Browns for taking three years to tank and failing to get to the Super Bowl before the traditionally moribund Bengals did. But to falsely float that Haslam once again engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud his customers—and to have the proof to back it up!—is a crime I can’t forget.
Go coach Grambling State, brother. Find some fulfillment in your current struggles, rather than trying to re-litigate your struggles in Cleveland because you look like an asshole, and you were already known as the guy who won one game in two years and started Carlos Hyde over Nick Chubb for reasons only known to you and God.
I’d simply like to forget your tenure in Cleveland, and I bet you say the same. So let’s go that route rather than tango on this toxic two-step.
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