Cincinnati head coach Marvin Lewis announced Monday that the team ‘has a plan’ to add Hue Jackson to it’s coaching staff. Coach Lewis also told reporters to ‘watch and see’. To the outside observer adding a coach who won only three games out of forty would appear insane and it is exactly that. It is yet another asenine move from a Bengals organization stuck dreaming of a Lewis-Jackson-Dalton eutopia.
Stuck in 2015, Mike Brown continues to stick with Marvin Lewis due to his relative success. The addition of Jackson is quite puzzling as the team already has an offensive coordinator in Bill Lazor. Jackson recently took a media tour and appeared on ESPN’s First Take and held an interview with Cleveland.com’s Mary Kay Kabot. Jackson stated in both appearances that he is interested in coaching again and it seems that he will always have a home with the Bengals.
When Jackson was hired by the Browns there were reports that the Bengals had proposed a plan where Lewis would eventually be replaced by Jackson when the time was right. It appears that plan may be back in action. While the position that Jackson will take within the organization is stated as “Special assistant to the head coach”, it most likely would be oriented around the offense since Hue has been known as (and self-pronounced himself as) a guru on that side of the ball.
The addition comes as another in a long string of decisions where an overly-stable organization has continued to stick to its plan that appears to have been written upon hiring Lewis. Mike Brown continued to stick by unsavory characters like Adam ‘Pacman’ Jones, Vontaze Burfict and drafting Joe Mixon who entered the draft with various off-field issues including domestic abuse.
While the Browns are undergoing a rebuild that has demonstrated the competence of their general manager, the Bengals continue to double down on its current strategy which has resulted in an embarrassing playoff record and could end up missing the playoffs for the third straight year.