Hue Jackson could’ve easily not said anything and would not be a topic of conversation over the past few days.
Jackson is backtracking on his claim that the Browns offered him money to lose games. On Wednesday, in response to a tweet about Brian Flores’ claims that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross offered him $100,000 per loss, Jackson tweeted that Browns owner Jimmy Haslam “was happy while we kept losing. When a fan tweeted, “Jimmy Haslam wasn’t offering 100k per loss or Hue would be on the Forbes list,” Jackson replied, “Trust me it was a good number!”
Jackson appeared on “SportsCenter” later Wednesday night to further clarify what he meant.
“Well, I need to really explain that because I think people have taken that and run and said, ‘Hey, I think you were in on something that happened,’” Jackson said. “That’s not the case.”
“What I was trying to make sure people understood is that we were paid for — you’re gonna see it as losing — but the way the team was built, there was no chance to win, and win at a high level. You’re in a situation where what you have to do is do the best you can. My record that year was 1-15.”
On CNN, he just came out and stated that he was never offered money.
Click on ‘Follow Us’ and get notified of the most viral NFL stories via Google! Follow Us
“No, I was never offered money like Brian had mentioned,” Jackson told CNN. “I think this is a totally different situation but has some similarities.”
However, Jackson stands by his claim that Haslam wanted to lose.
“I told Jimmy that what he was doing was very destructive, to not do this because it’s going to hurt my career and every other coach that worked with me and every player on the team. And I told him that it would hurt every Black coach that would follow me. And I have the documents to prove this,” Jackson said.
Asked why he doesn’t produce those documents, Jackson responded, “Those things will come to light at the right time.”
Jackson was hired by the Browns in 2016 and had one win in his first two seasons. He was fired by the organization in October 2018 after a 2-5-1 start in his third year.
Jackson was recently named the head coach of the HBCU Grambling State.
