Mike the bartender doubts that Hue Jackson will be back for 2018, despite what Jimmy Haslam (the poor cornered guy) said when he dumped Sashi Brown.
Even if Hue beats Mitchell and da Bearss tomorrow, his record is amazingly bad, and in reality Sashi Brown did preserve and provide him with a bunch of talented players. That's veterans (Zietler, Tretter, McCourtey, Collins, Coley) as well as draftees and undrafteds like Boddy-Calhoun.
There is and has been enough talent here to win a few games, even with a bad quarterback.
I've gone into what's wrong with Hue Jackson, but the Cliff Notes version reads: "Rigid. Inflexible. Not adaptable. Entrenched. BLOCKHEAD. See 'Fisher, Jeff'".
It goes beyond this, however. In my last post, I told you why Alex Smith (and Kirk Cousins, for that matter), might love the idea of having targets like Gordon, Coleman, Njoku, Johnson (AND DeValve btw dammit) to throw to, but probably want nothing to do with Hue Jackson.
This I can redundate: These are first and foremost West Coast quarterbacks. They know that Hue Fisher will NOT let them do that, no matter what.
You hear what I'm saying? They might play for the Browns, but not for Hue Fisher!
TRUST ME, right now Ken Dorsey is telling Jimmy Haslam exactly this. It might go something like this:
"Boss, you're killing me here. I know I'm not allowed to talk to agents, but little birdies are telling me that Hue Jackson is radioactive for Smith and Cousins, so where do I get the veteran who's ready to win this Division in 2018?"
"But now I'm in a jam! I fire another Head Coach I said would be here forever after one or two seasons? I'm a laughing-stock already! And now here we go again with a new offensive system! I know Hue is a blockhead, but at least--"
"I know I get it, but a veteran quarterback would iron a lot of that out. Would you rather have Hue, or Alex Smith in 2018?"
"It's really like that?"
"These quarterbacks are running out of time, and they know it. They can shop around, and their top priority will be somewhere where they can do what they do best. That's emphatically NOT anywhere near Hue Jackson."
"But we have the first overall pick! What about--"
"If we start another rookie quarterback, we have no chance of winning this Division next season. The bulk of the roster is coming into it's own just now, and this is our window. You have to fire Hue if you want to turn this around quickly. You need an elite veteran quarterback to do that, and replacing Hue is how you can get one."
"You have somebody in mind?"
A lot of you don't understand how this works. Newly-hired Head Coaches don't always want to "clean house", and most of the candidates for this position would have no problem retaining Gregg Williams and his staff.
Presumably Hue's replacement would be an offensive coach, quite possibly from the Holmgren/Reid tree, with which Dorsey is very familiar.
Yokels will insist on a "proven" Head Coach, but this translates to "somebody somebody else fired". It's more likely to be an offensive coordinator, and you need to understand this, as well:
In his rookie season, the former offensive coordinator can mostly do what he did before and let Gregg Williams and the special teams guy do what they do.
There would be a lot of unavoidable disruptions on offense, as the players have to learn a new "language" and stuff, but a Smith or Cousins would adapt quickly (especially Smith, who has run five or more offensive systems in his career).
Listen to me: Routes are routes. Every NFL receiver can run all of them. Zone-blocking is idiot-proof, and every offensive lineman can execute it (well or poorly is a separate issue) out of the gate.
The complications for these non-quarterbacks are mostly about language. "ABC" is now "ZWB" to them.
For receivers, the West Coast is also more demanding, as they're required to read the defense just like the quarterback does, and they need to be very precise in their routes.
But hopefully, the new Head Coach would do what Hue Jackson was expected to do, and adapt his offense to his personnel:
I'm projecting West Coast offense off of Holmgren/Reid, but Gordon is a Randy Moss deep threat, Njoku is (well ok will become) a dangerous vertical threat, and Coleman can blow people's doors off too, so a smart Head Coach exploits those vertical routes as well (assuming he has the right quarterback to hold up the other end).
This (sadly) brings me back to Hue Fisher. Remember how, in game one, the Browns barely lost to the Steelers, and Kizer looked like the real deal?
After that, opposing defenses stifled and then shut down Hue's offense. That's partly because, well...that was his game-plan in every game since, no matter what.
We saw this just last week: Despite having a lead, he stopped running, and put the game on Kizer's shoulders. Was Hue just so used to playing from behind that he just couldn't help himself, or what?
I have to get up off of Hue, who I like personally, but firing him is the best thing Jimmy Haslam can do (and damn the torpedos!)
The hell with DeShone Kizer. We've seen enough of Hue Fisher to know he's not a franchise Head Coach.
THIS JUST IN: Derrick Kindred was just placed on IR.
All due respect to Pat McNanoman, who might have just mis-written, but his replacement will probably be Jabrill Peppers, and Rodney Nacuafield will get some more playing time and, I hereby predict, play well.
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