When a team is historically bad, we tend to mock and jeer and ask if a college team could beat them and generally revel in their misery. We don’t see a collection of individuals suffering through the worst experience of their professional career, we see a logo with a funny win-loss record next to it.
But when a football coach nearly cries at a press conference, it becomes a little more real.
According to ESPN, Hue Jackson, coach of the 0-12 Cleveland Browns, got emotional Sunday as he tried to explain what it’s like to be winless.
As he spoke, his eyes started to well up and his voice broke ever so slightly.
“Being 0-12 is probably … the hardest thing ever,” Jackson said after the team’s 12th loss in 12 games, 27-13 to the New York Giants.
Jackson quickly composed himself, but this was the first real sign of emotion that the coach has shown in a long season. The more he spoke, the more it was evident that every loss is taking a piece out of him.
“It’s been a long 12 weeks,” Jackson said.
The Browns may be a bad football team, but they’re made up of super talented and devoted people who have experienced success throughout their whole lives in order to get where they are now. Jackson is, by all accounts, a solid coach and a good guy. And when you think about it like that, maybe it’s not amusing that Cleveland could go winless.
Before today I was rooting for the Browns to go 16-0, because I thought that’d be funny. Now I hope they win next week.
[ESPN]
