It’s been almost four decades since Hue Jackson began his coaching career. When it comes to the NFL, however, Jackson is best known for his disappointing two-and-a-half-year stint as the Cleveland Browns‘ head coach. Back in 2018, Browns ownership relieved Jackson of his duties midway through the season after Cleveland went 3-36-1 under his leadership.

Still, Jackson has no desire to define his coaching career by that Browns stint. In fact, according to Jackson, his time with the Browns was not a failure. During a recent appearance on The Pivot Podcast, Jackson reflected on his Browns tenure and explained how the media narratives interpreted his head coaching career in Cleveland.

“I failed at Cleveland, according to what people said…Sometimes you got to play the game, right? I didn’t fail at Cleveland,” said Jackson during a conversation with Ryan Clark. “Are you kidding me? Go back and look at the team. Go back and look and ask me who had the decision and put them on the field. I have my own algorithm as a football coach. I know what players it takes. I was like coaching them in Cincinnati, but all of a sudden in Cleveland, I don’t know what it takes to win. It don’t look that way.

“I didn’t all of a sudden fall off the turnip truck and forget football in a freaking year. I know what it takes to win. You think that I was gonna put quarterbacks on my team that we had on our team in the beginning? Come on now, let’s wake up. Look, you know the media, Ryan (Clark) as well as anybody. They can, once you start that fire, it takes off and runs, and that’s the narrative that everybody can create when they want to.”

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The Browns hired Jackson as their head coach ahead of the 2016 season after he served as the Cincinnati Bengals‘ offensive coordinator. During the 2014 season in Cincinnati, Jackson helped the Bengals’ offense rank 15th in the league as the team went 10-5-1 and made the playoffs. A year later, the Bengals made it to the wildcard round after finishing with a 12-4 record. Jackson, meanwhile, helped the Bengals’ offense improve to seventh in the league.

While the Bengals enjoyed success in the 2014 and 2015 seasons with Jackson as their OC, the Browns, however, failed to find their footing over the next two and a half years under his leadership. A revolving door at quarterback, inconsistent performances, and eventually an 0-16 season later, Jackson’s tenure came to an end.

Across 40 games under Hue Jackson, the Browns used seven different starting quarterbacks. In 2016, Robert Griffin III started five games, Josh McCown started three, and Cody Kessler made eight starts. The following year, however, Jackson had DeShone Kizer as his QB1 for the first 15 games and Kevin Hogan for one. Still, the Browns failed to win a single game, finishing the season 0-16.

After the season, Jackson asked ownership for another opportunity, and Cleveland also drafted Baker Mayfield in the 2018 NFL Draft. However, after Jackson once again failed to find success, the ownership pulled the plug on him.