Despite backtracking on his payment allegations, former Cleveland Browns defensive back Jason McCourty added credence to Hue Jackson’s claim that there were incentives to lose during the 2016 and 2017 seasons. McCourty was with the Browns in 2017 when the team finished 0-16, which made them the second team in NFL history to have a winless season.
McCourty suggested on his “Double Coverage” podcast Friday there was some merit to Jackson’s claim.
“I was in Cleveland in 2017. There’s no way we were trying to win. It was very obvious,” McCourty said. “That is to no surprise to anyone. You don’t need me to corroborate the story and say, ‘We were tanking, we were trying to lose.’ Duh.”
“I said this when I got to New England: You realize winning in the NFL is not easy, so you don’t want to take it for granted, you celebrate your wins. But the year I spent in Cleveland also taught me winning ain’t this hard either. You don’t just go 1-31. It’s not that hard to figure out on the other end of it.”
Jackson said the Browns had a “plan” that benefited certain people when players didn’t perform well for the Browns.
“When you talk about incentivizing a four-year plan that led to the team not being able to play as well, that people benefited off of that — that’s different. But at the same time, it has some of the same similarities to it,” Jackson told CNN.
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Jackson, now the head coach at Grambling State University, told ESPN there was money to be made for hitting certain milestones.
“Teams that win are just not the youngest team, not that the youngest teams can’t win, so I didn’t understand the process,” Jackson told the outlet during an appearance on “SportsCenter.”
“I didn’t understand what the plan was. I asked for clarity because it did not talk about winning and losing until year three and four. So that told you right there that something wasn’t correct, but I still couldn’t understand it until I had the team that I had.
“And I remember very candidly saying to [Browns team owner Jimmy Haslam], ‘I’m not interested in bonus money,’ because I’ve never known that to be a bonus. I was interested in taking whatever that money was and putting it toward getting more players on our football team because I didn’t think we were very talented at all. I know what good football teams look like, play like, what they act like, and we didn’t have a lot of talented players on the team at that time.”
He first made his claims on Twitter when he wrote Haslam was “happy while we kept losing.”
“Trust me it was a good number,” he said in response that he was offered money to lose.
Jackson later told CNN he was “never offered money” to lose but stood by his claim Haslam was never trying to win while he was the head coach.
Jackson made his claims after former Miami coach Brian Flores filed a lawsuit against the Dolphins, Denver Broncos, New York Giants and the NFL, alleging racial discrimination. Her later added Dolphins team owner Stephen Ross offered a $100,000 payment for each loss during the 2019 season.