Jackson safe despite Browns’ worst season

Minus stars, Steelers escape in OT; Dolphins up next at Heinz Field

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH

The worst season in franchise history won’t cost Cleveland Browns coach Hue Jackson his job.

If anything, owner Jimmy Haslam is doubling down on his bet that Jackson, general manager Sashi Brown and the rest of the front office are the right people to turn things around.

The revolving door that’s been an offseason fixture since Haslam bought the team in 2012 is stopping, even after a 27-24 overtime loss to the backup-laden Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday that left the Browns an NFL-worst 1-15.

The Steelers, the AFC’s third seed after winning the North Division last week, will host the sixth-seeded Miami Dolphins on Sunday at 1 p.m. in a Wildcard playoff game.

“Clearly not an acceptable year,” Haslam said. “Really since we bought the team, it’s totally unacceptable performance, which as ownership we’ll take the entire blame for.”

And not, Haslam stressed, Jackson or Brown, both of whom were brought in last winter to revive a team that’s 15-49 over the past four seasons.

“Could not be more pleased with the job Hue and the staff are doing,” Haslam said. “You wouldn’t think this was a 1-14 team with the way this team was out there battling [today]. Really pleased with Hue and really pleased with our personnel group. I think we have the right people in place.”

If not the right results. At least, not yet. Their final game of 2016 looked an awful lot like the 15 that came before it: flashes of competence undone by questionable play-calling and occasionally bad luck.

The Browns fumbled inside the Pittsburgh 5 with a minute to go in regulation and had a first-and-goal at the Pittsburgh 2 turn into a field goal by Cody Parkey, extending the game.

Oh, and they had a potential pick-6 by Briean Boddy-Calhoun turn into a touchback when Pittsburgh’s Darrius Heyward-Bey punched the ball out of Boddy-Calhoun’s hands as he stretched for the goal line in the third quarter.

While the loss assured the Browns of the top pick in the draft this spring, it provided little solace after the Steelers responded to Parkey’s field goal by going 75 yards in nine plays, the last a 26-yard touchdown lob from Landry Jones to Cobi Hamilton.

The Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback, who will become a free agent in March, didn’t exactly ace it while filling in for Ben Roethlisberger.

Jones completed 24 of 37 for 277 yards with three touchdowns and an interception despite getting sacked four times for the first victory in a game he both started and finished. Jones went 6 for 8 on the last drive, including a fourth-down conversion to Demarcus Ayers.

“It was hard the way that we won,” Jones said. “But in the end, for a quarterback to do it in overtime, to do it on the last drive and to throw a pass like that — those are the things you dream about. I think for me that was just a big deal in my career.”

The rest of the Steelers reserves did pretty well in their own right while Pittsburgh sat Roethlisberger, Le’Veon Bell and Antonio Brown to preserve them for the playoffs.

Hamilton caught three passes for 54 yards. DeAngelo Williams finished with 94 total yards and two touchdowns in his return from knee surgery.

Browns quarterback Robert Griffin III threw for 232 yards, two touchdowns and an interception in his most productive game since signing a two-year deal with the Browns in the offseason and missing more than two months with a shoulder injury.

Giffin said he’d welcome the chance to compete with a rookie quarterback if the Browns elect to use their top pick on someone such as North Carolina’s Mitch Trubisky (a native of the Cleveland suburbs) or Clemson’s DeShaun Watson.

Isaiah Crowell ran for a career-high 152 yards for the Browns, who have been playing football since 1946 (save for a brief three-year break from 1996-98) and never finished with a “one” in the win column.

Not exactly that Jackson envisioned when he took over last January.

“You can’t sugarcoat this,” Jackson said. “It is what it is. I would hope we get a chance next year to earn a different type of record. That’s where it starts. We’re 1-15. I never would have thought that in a million years, but we are.”

Griffin acknowledged that the broken bone in his shoulder suffered in September never fully healed, though he was quick to point out it did not have a significant impact on his play.

“You’d be naive to think a guy that breaks a bone in season is going to come back with a fully healed bone,” Griffin said. “The doctors felt I was healed enough to return to play ... but to say I was 100 percent healthy is a lie.”

Like Haslam, Griffin praised Jackson and his staff for doing what they could in a difficult situation.

“I think those guys are the right guys,” Griffin said. “I think in the offseason what those guys are going to do is give the Cleveland Browns the best chance to win going into next year.”