Hue Jackson won the power struggle in Cleveland.
The Brownsfired executive vice president Sashi Brown on Thursday, but Jackson will continue to be the head coach.
"Hue Jackson will remain our coach and will return for the 2018 season but we feel it is necessary to take significant steps to strengthen our personnel department," owner Jimmy Haslam said in a statement announcing Brown's dismisal. "We have begun the process of having productive conversations regarding leadership of our football operations and will provide further updates when appropriate."
"I appreciate Jimmy saying that," Jackson told reporters Thursday. "Again, my focus coming here to the Cleveland Browns is to coach the football team and get this organization turned around, and I haven't been able to do that yet. That's something that I think we all want to do, you know, Jimmy, Dee, obviously hopefully I'm still a part of that, which I am, and hopefully our players that are here, a year from now, hopefully we can get this thing where it needs to be."
Committing to Jackson into next year while staring at a possible 0-16 season is a strong statement from Haslam. Jackson's .036 winning percentage is the worst by an NFL head coach in a stint with one team since 1970 (min. 15 games), per NFL Research.
Jackson has rightly shared criticism for the Browns' failures to improve this season. His handling of the quarterback situation -- benching rookie DeShone Kizer multiple times -- and the lack of development of young players are chief among the concerns.
Haslam's decision to fire Brown while committing to Jackson for at least another season places the heft of the blame on the front office while essentially giving the coaching staff a mulligan.
With a new general manager coming in, there is still a chance Haslam could be convinced to move on from Jackson. We've seen coaches forced upon new GMs blow up in the past.
