NFL
Ex-Cleveland coach Hue Jackson suggests he was paid to fail during his time with the team
The former NFL coach joins suggestions of alleged practices of tanking games to get more promising drafting positions.
After ex-Dolphins coach Brian Flores filed a class-action lawsuit, a storm hit the NFL. The allegations arose from racism to losing games un purpose to secure a more profitable drafting position. Today, another ex-NFL coach joins his sentiment, Hue Jackson, who coached the Cleveland Browns has suggested that he was also paid to fail while with the team.
Jackson, who is presently the head coach of Grambling State University, took to Twitter and communicated his backing of coach Brian Flores. While on the platform, he suggested that Browns owner Jimmy Haslam was "Happy while we kept losing."
Moreover, when a question about the truthiness of his allegation and that of Haslam paying $100,000 per lost game, he responded by tweeting, "trust me, it was a good number. Over his first two seasons, the now Grambling coach had a 1-31 record and was later fired after a 2-5-1 start to the season. In parallel, Brian Flores was fired from the Dolphins coaching job after a 24-25 run with the Florida team.
The Tanking practice
The tanking of games is a notion that is not foreign to sports fans and experts. The idea behind this practice is said to be put in motion by teams who have no options of winning a trophy and have higher rewards by losing games and ending the season in a worse league standing.
In addition, consequently, during those years, the Browns were given consecutive No. 1 draft picks in the 2017 and 2018 NFL drafts. The team was able to take defensive end Myles Garrett and quarterback Baker Mayfield.
Developing story
Adding fuel to the fire, Kimberly Diemert, who is an executive director at the Hue Jackson Foundation, also went on Twitter to talk about the Flores case. She claims to have records that will help his case. Diemert wrote that the Browns paid bonuses to Jackson, and front office executives, Sashi Brown, Andrews Berry, and Paul DePodesta, to lose games while also commenting that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell knew of the situation and helped cover it up.