Jackson back where his head-coaching career began
The 1989 University of the Pacific team featured two assistant coaches who one day would become NFL head coaches: Jon Gruden and Hue Jackson.
That didn’t help much when the Tigers opened their season on the road against Pittsburgh, losing 38-3. Or when they traveled the next weekend to play national power Auburn, falling 55-0.
“We were some of those body-bag games, as they called them back then,” Jackson said with a chuckle Wednesday on a conference call.
The Tigers, under future Pitt and Stanford head coach Walt Harris, finished the season 2-10.
“And then they dropped football” in 1995, Gruden said. “So I can say it wasn’t the greatest. But it was a lot of fun.”
Gruden and Jackson will be on opposite sidelines Sunday when the Raiders host the Browns in Oakland — where Jackson also served as head coach of the Raiders for a season in 2011.
Pacific is Jackson’s alma mater and was his first coaching job after college. He joked Wednesday that his year coaching there alongside Gruden was “probably more fun for me than it was for Jon” but added that
sharing an office with Gruden left a lasting impression.
“Honestly, Jon taught me football,” Jackson said. “I always tell that story, and I’m always grateful and thankful for what he taught me. There’s a lot of him that still runs through me as I coach, as I’ve made my stops.”
Eventually, Jackson wended his way to Oakland, becoming the Raiders’ offensive coordinator in 2010. The Raiders’ offense that season ranked sixth in the NFL in scoring (25.6 points per game) and 10th in total yards. When the team decided not to bring back Tom Cable as head coach after an 8-8 finish, Jackson was named his successor.
Jackson presided over an eventful season that included Oakland trading for quarterback Carson Palmer midseason and the death of owner Al Davis, which preceded the team’s Week 5 game at Houston. The Raiders beat the Texans 25-20, with Jackson memorably dropping to a knee at the sideline and crying at the game’s finish.
The Raiders had a shot at the playoffs going into their season finale but lost 38-26 at home to the Chargers. Jackson lit into his players in his postgame news conference, saying he was “pissed at my team.” Several days later, the Raiders hired Reggie McKenzie as their general manager. One of McKenzie’s first moves was to fire Jackson.
“I’ll never forget — I can laugh about it now — my last press conference, exactly what I was trying to convey, but obviously, I did it the wrong way,” Jackson said Wednesday. “So you grow from that, you learn from that, and you move forward.”
Jackson spent the next four seasons with the Bengals, including as offensive coordinator from 2014 through ’15, before becoming Cleveland’s head coach in 2016. He said he still values his relatively short time with the Raiders.
“Designing an offense to fit the skill set of the players that were here, that was a lot of fun,” Jackson said. “Obviously learning also from Al Davis. Contrary to what anybody believed, I had an unbelievable relationship with Al Davis, the other coaches that were on the staff. And to be able to become the head coach there was a dream.
“When that opportunity was done, I went back to Cincinnati and what I learned is, hey look, I didn’t have all the answers. There were some things that I needed to get better at, needed to keep growing, needed to keep finding ways to better myself. And I was able to do that.”
The Browns started 0-14 in Jackson’s first season, finishing 1-15. Last season, they became the second team in NFL history to go 0-16.
This season, though, has offered a glimmer of hope. The Browns tied the Steelers in Week 1, lost 21-18 to the Saints in Week 2 and beat the Jets 21-17 last Thursday with Baker Mayfield, the No. 1 overall pick in this year’s draft, leading a comeback after entering just before halftime.
“Cleveland’s a much-improved team,” Gruden said. “Very easily could be 3-0, playing inspired football, got a lot of young, emerging players.”
Compiling a 2-32-1 record with the Browns, Jackson said, has reinforced something he took away from working for Davis in Oakland.
“The thing he instilled in me, and has been the toughest thing for me to deal with, is just winning,” Jackson said. “Everything you do is about winning.”