CLEVELAND — Earlier this week, Hue Jackson and the executive director of his foundation, Kimberly Diemert, made headlines when they alleged that Jackson was paid to lose games during his tenure as the head coach of the Cleveland Browns -- a claim that the team has since denied.
Speaking to 3News' Marisa Saenz on Thursday, Diemert, who represented Jackson as an investigator in his grievance against the Browns following his firing in 2018, doubled down on her claim.
"They were all paid to lose," Diemert said, referencing Jackson and the Browns front office.
Unlike Brian Flores -- who has alleged that the Miami Dolphins offered him $100,000 per loss during the 2019 season -- both Jackson and Diemert have admitted that any payment Jackson received to lose wasn't explicit. Rather, they claim it was the result of a bonus structure that monetarily rewarded the now-Grambling State head coach for vague benchmarks more indicative of a rebuild -- or a "tank" -- than a team trying to win.
"When Hue Jackson asked specifically, 'I don't understand what these benchmarks are, how are we to attain these goals, I don't understand what this really means,' it was told to him by [then-general manager] Sashi Brown, 'it's $500,000 of easy money, don't worry about it. We're still working out all of the details,'" Diemert said.
"As the process kept unfolding and Hue Jackson would ask him, 'what does this really mean? Explain all of this for me, how I'm getting allocated a percentage of a financial share and everybody else is getting allocated a percentage of a financial share based off of these benchmarks -- how am I to achieve these benchmarks?' At the time, he didn't understand it was a part of a plan to tank the Cleveland Browns football team during 2016 and 2017."
Diemert says she has documentation proving her and Jackson's claims but that she isn't ready to publicly release them yet. She did note that the NFL didn't dispute the validity of the documents during Jackson's grievance against the Browns, in which the league ultimately ruled in Cleveland's favor.
The accusations from Jackson and Diemert come after Flores announced that he was filing a lawsuit against the NFL and three of its teams -- the Miami Dolphins, Denver Broncos and New York Giants -- alleging racism in their hiring practices. Appearing on ESPN's "Sportscenter" on Wednesday, Jackson said that he wouldn't rule out joining Flores' lawsuit.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the Browns denied the accusations made against them by Jackson and Diemert.
"The recent comments by Hue Jackson and his representatives relating to his tenure as our head coach are completely fabricated," a team spokesperson said. "Any accusation that any member of our organization was incentivized to deliberately lose games is categorically false."