NFL absolves Browns on pay-to-tank claim
The NFL has sided with the Cleveland Browns over Hue Jackson.
The league announced Monday that its investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing by the Browns after a review of the allegations Jackson made in February that he was incentivized to lose games in the 2016 and 2017 seasons while serving as their head coach.
The NFL released the following statement Monday about the probe led by Mary Jo White, former chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission:
“Following a 60-day independent review into comments made by former Cleveland head coach Hue Jackson that the Browns paid or otherwise provided incentives to lose games during the 2016-17 seasons, former U.S. Attorney and SEC Chair Mary Jo White and a team of lawyers from the Debevoise firm determined that none of the allegations could be substantiated.
“The investigation found no evidence to suggest that the Browns’ FourYear Plan or the club’s ownership or football personnel sought to lose or incentivized losses and made no decisions deliberately to weaken the team to secure a more favorable draft position.
“The comprehensive review included the full cooperation of the Browns and interviews with Jimmy Haslam and current and former members of the organization. While Coach Jackson initially agreed to meet with the investigators, he ultimately did not do so.
“Although unable to speak directly to Coach Jackson, the Debevoise team had access to his public statements and to his filings and testimony in a prior arbitration proceeding. The club also produced thousands of pages of documents, including emails, texts, internal memos and presentation decks as well as other material relating to club operations and the filings and testimony in the arbitration proceeding between the club and Coach Jackson.”
The NFL also hired White to investigate allegations made by former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores that owner Stephen Ross offered him $100,000 a loss during the 2019 season. Flores is suing the Dolphins, New York Giants and Denver Broncos and alleging racial discrimination by the league’s franchises in hiring practices.
After Flores filed the suit in February, Jackson embarked on a media blitz to accuse the Browns of something similar. At the time, the Browns labeled Jackson’s accusations “categorically false.”
Although Jackson has made a distinction that he isn’t claiming the Browns offered him payments per loss, he has said the Browns paid him a total of $750,000 in end-of-season bonus money as part of a four-year plan designed to field a young team and stockpile draft picks in the first two seasons without a focus on winning until the third year.
“No, I was never offered money like Brian (Flores) had mentioned,” Jackson told CNN’s Anderson Cooper in February. “I think this is a totally different situation but has some similarities.
“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 went 3-36-1 (1-15 in 2016, 0-16 in 2017 and 2-5-1 in 2018) in 21⁄2 seasons as the head coach of the Browns before Haslam fired him on Oct. 29, 2018.
Jackson is now the head football coach at Grambling State University.