Cleveland Browns' Rookie Camp Is Hue Jackson's First Chance To Change Culture

When Hue Jackson signed on to be the next coach of the Cleveland Browns, it sent quite a shockwave through the NFL. How did this moribund franchise, which just finished a season that was Murphy’s Law-level terrible, land one of the best available coaches?

For many around the league, the glow of the hire wore down in the ensuing months, as Cleveland let all of its marquee free agents walk while seemingly volunteering to be a bad football team. This, followed by Jackson hitching his cart to a somewhat damaged Robert Griffin III as his 2016 quarterback, had everyone back on the “same ole Browns” bandwagon.

However, while it was easy to pile on after all these moves, you could see what Jackson was trying to do. It was an ugly, but albeit necessary step in cleaning out the culture of losing so he could try to build a winner.

Cleveland’s new coach gets his first real chance at leaving his imprint on the team this weekend as rookie minicamp kicks off. Jackson will be getting his first crop of hand-selected players on the field, where he’ll look to prove to them this isn’t the same cruddy franchise everyone has come to know.

While the Browns have already hosted some offseason workouts to this point, this weekend is different. As we know, rookies are much more impressionable than longtime vets. To this point, they know they’ve been selected by a team which many see as the league’s ongoing joke. It’d be easy for these players to get to Cleveland this weekend mentally preparing for a grueling few years of winning just a couple games per season.

This is where Jackson comes in. He’s stated from the get-go that he’s serious about building a winner. While many struggled to believe him, especially after watching his team shed talent left and right, he’s stayed steadfast in his belief that the Browns are taking the right approach for the long haul.

Part of that approach is building through the draft, which Cleveland most certainly did a couple weekends ago in selecting 14 rookies. These players, along with several undrafted free agents, head to the team facility this weekend to get their first experience as a Brown. It’s up to Jackson to make sure they all buy in.

This weekend’s camp holds more importance than the first set of workouts the Browns hosted. This time around, Cleveland is bringing in the future of the team. This giant crop of rookies is the foundation to what Jackson is trying to build.

With that in mind, one of the biggest steps for him is to make it clear the culture is shifting, that the goal is to shed the “same ole Browns” image. Everyone sees the Browns as a laughingstock right now, and from the outside it’s easy to see why. Therefore, Jackson now has his first chance at proving to these rookies that things are changing for the better. That they’ll all be working together to get this rebuild going in the right direction.

You could say that’s putting an incredibly large spotlight on a rookie minicamp, making a big deal out of a typical offseason session. At the same time, there’s a ton riding on Jackson. He’s being labeled as the coach who can finally turn this team around. A big chance to do so comes this weekend, where he’ll try to get his first class of rookies to embrace his plan to end the misery of this long-suffering team.