Outgoing Bengals coach Marvin Lewis has a parting gift for the city where he coached for nearly a generation: He thinks the coach with the worst won-loss record in multiple generations should become the next coach of the Bengals.
“I think he’s more than qualified,” Lewis told reporters on Monday regarding former Raiders and Browns coach Hue Jackson, for now still a member of the Cincinnati coaching staff. “I think he’s been in a couple of difficult situations, and that’s tough, and it hasn’t broke his way. But I think he’s an excellent football coach, he’s a great motivator. He’s detailed. So I think he deserves an opportunity. If not here, somewhere else.”
Few would agree. Indeed, as the coaching carousel hit full speed on Monday, with a flood of names of candidates emerging, Hue’s didn’t. Not even in Cincinnati.
And for good reason. Apart from the fact that his record during stints with the Raiders and Browns flat-out stinks, Hue has created plenty of drama and dysfunction during his time as a head coach. In Cleveland, for example, the Browns ultimately didn’t fire Hue because of his coaching abilities but because of the turmoil created by Jackson and former offensive coordinator Todd Haley. That turmoil came a year after Jackson by all appearances played politics with ownership to make Sashi Brown the scapegoat for the sorry state of the team.
The strong performance of the Browns after his firing doesn’t help matters, either. The improvement of the Browns became palpable, and the Baker Mayfield subplot made Hue into even more of a caricature.
Thus, with so many viable candidates out there, a guy who went 1-15 and 0-16 in consecutive seasons simply isn’t getting back in. How could any owner sell that to the people who are expected to buy tickets?
