It’s about time, but Cleveland Browns Head Coach Hue Jackson has finally agreed to go jump in a lake, something many fans have long hoped for. It’s also something that he promised he would do. And now we finally know that it’s going to happen.
Jackson took over as the team’s head coach in 2016 and did not find his first win until the 15th game of the season, going 1-15 overall. He vowed that he would go jump in a lake if the Browns finished without more than a single win the following season. They went 0-16. And so now he’s going to jump in a lake.
According to the organization’s website, the jump is actually going to take place at a private location and only team employees will be in attendance, which seems to defeat at least part of the purpose. But for every Browns employee that jumps in with him, Jackson will donate $100 toward his charity, which works to fight human trafficking within the area.
He first acknowledged that he would take a jump in a lake after the Browns lost their 15th game last season, ensuring that they could not finish with more than one win. Because reporters asked him about it, of course. He seemed to hope that people would have forgotten.
It’s not exactly a shock that he would have put it off until the weather warms up, but hey, who could really blame him? Back during the Combine, he said of the jump that “it’s going to be a cleansing of the Cleveland Browns”.
The team has worked heavily this offseason to do the practical work behind that idealistic promise, making dramatic moves both in free agency and the draft, including a number of trades and a complete clean sweep of their quarterback room, which now consists of Tyrod Taylor, Baker Mayfield, and Drew Stanton.
Jackson, together with his wife, formally opened his charity last year, according to the team’s website, and they will be opening a residence home in cooperation with the Salvation Army in about two months that will cater to survivors of human trafficking.
It is a more than worthy cause that I’ve written about before (see the first link in this article if you’ve missed it), addressing a problem that is vastly underrecognized in part because it’s something too horrible for the average person to want to acknowledge is actually going on right now.
Of course there are the Browns fans that really do just want Jackson to go jump in a lake, as in get fired, but for once that doesn’t appear to be the case. In spite of the fact that he has only managed to bring his team to victory once in 32 tries, he will be the first coach in Cleveland for a while that has made it to a third season.
