CLEVELAND — Hue Jackson strolled into the Browns’ facility unafraid, brimming with optimism.
CLEVELAND — Hue Jackson strolled into the Browns’ facility unafraid, brimming with optimism.
He’s well aware of Cleveland’s football misery, the losing, continuous change and dysfunction encasing one of the NFL’s most storied franchises.
Jackson doesn’t mind the mess. He’s ready to clean it up.
“I like challenges,” he said. “And boy, what a challenge.”
The downtrodden Browns hired Jackson, a former Oakland coach and innovative offensive coordinator in Cincinnati the past two seasons, as their new coach Wednesday — the club’s eighth since 1999 and sixth since 2008.
Following a search that lasted less than two weeks, owner Jimmy Haslam made the 50-year-old Jackson the face of his team, and just maybe the one to make it relevant again.
“We got the right guy for the Cleveland Browns,” Haslam said.
Just hours after finalizing his contract, Jackson was introduced during a news conference in which he pumped his fist to acknowledge Cleveland’s rabid fan base, promised to make the Browns tougher and said he’s not concerned that the four coaches who preceded him lasted two years or less.
“That’s those coaches,” he said. “I can’t worry about what’s happened before me.”
Jackson had interviewed with San Francisco and was scheduled to meet later this week with the New York Giants, one of the league’s standard-bearers for stability.
But before Jackson had a chance to speak with another team, Haslam, who skipped the owner’s meetings in Houston to focus on finding his coach, decided during a meeting with him in Cincinnati on Tuesday that he was done talking to candidates.
When Jackson excused himself from the room, Haslam turned to two of his top executives: newly promoted vice president of football operations Sashi Brown and Paul DePodesta, a baseball analytics expert hired as Cleveland’s new strategy director and declared the search was over.
“This is our man,” Haslam told them.
The Browns were attracted to Jackson because of his 8-8 season with the Raiders in 2011, a strong knowledge of the AFC North and his success working with quarterbacks like Carson Palmer and Andy Dalton.