CLEVELAND — Former Cleveland Browns head coach Hue Jackson has been relieved of his coaching duties with the Cincinnati Bengals.
According to Elise Jesse of WLWT, the Bengals informed him of the decision on Friday afternoon.
Jackson rejoined the Bengals, the very team he left to take over the Browns, just eight days after being dismissed on Monday, October 29, 2018. Following his ouster in Cleveland, Jackson was hired as a special assistant to Bengals coach Marvin Lewis.
Lewis and the Bengals parted ways earlier this offseason.
Jackson was let go by the Browns, along with former offensive coordinator Todd Haley, in an unprecedented midseason coaching upheaval because general manager John Dorsey and owner Jimmy Haslam felt the “internal discord” among the top two offensive coaches on the staff was holding back a team that finished 7-8-1 despite a 2-5-1 start.
Hired in January of 2016 to replace Mike Pettine, Jackson posted a 3-36-1 record and was 1-13-1 within the AFC North Division in his two-plus years as head coach of the Browns. Included in that record were the Browns’ two worst seasons in franchise history, a 1-15 mark in 2016 and only the second 0-16 season in NFL history in 2017.
A man of his word in that regard, Jackson jumped into Lake Erie with more than 100 members of the organization to “cleanse the losing” out of the Browns following the 0-16 season in 2017.
Known for his ability to develop quarterbacks, Jackson struggled to get consistent play out of the position and started a rookie in each of his three seasons with the Browns, Cody Kessler in 2016, DeShone Kizer in 2017 and Baker Mayfield this past year.
Mayfield was the only one of those three to win an NFL start for the Browns.
With a season-ending 28-24 loss to the Steelers on December 31, 2017, the Browns went winless in a 16-game season for the first time in franchise history, and their 17th consecutive loss overall dropped the organization to a league-worst 1-31 since the opening game of 2016.
Jackson was a part of several dubious records during his time with the Browns, as the time had an NFL-record 36 straight Sunday losses, and their 4-49 mark in 53 outings from 2014 to 2017 was the worst in the league in that four-year span.
Additionally, during the 2017 season, the Browns set the record for the worst 28-game stretch in NFL history, as they bested the previous mark of 2-26 set by the expansion Tampa Bay Buccaneers during the 1976-1977 seasons with a 1-27 mark that got four losses worse after Week 13.