Hue Jackson is officially the new head coach of the Cleveland Browns.
The team announced the hiring in a release on Wednesday afternoon. Jackson will be the ninth man to serve as head coach of the Browns, including interim coach Terry Robiskie, since they returned to the league in 1999.
“It’s very exciting for us to name Hue Jackson as the head coach of the Cleveland Browns,” owner Jimmy Haslam said in a statement. “He embodies all the qualities that will provide strong leadership for our football team. He is highly experienced, deeply passionate about winning, and relentless in trying to find ways to put his players in the best position to succeed. He possesses that unique ability to reach the entire locker room in a way that demands accountability while getting the buy-in and team-first mentality that leads to positive results. I think our players will love playing for him. Dee and I warmly welcome Hue and his family to Cleveland.”
Jackson also provided a statement for the release and called it a “tremendous honor and privilege” to get the job. Jackson was 8-8 in 2011 as the Raiders head coach, which is the team’s best record since 2002, and spent the last four seasons on the Bengals staff.
“I’m a very enthusiastic person. I exert a lot of energy in coaching,” Jackson said. “I love coaching all aspects of it: offense, defense and special teams. I’ve had an opportunity to be involved in all of it. At the end of the day, we’re going to do a great job of hiring a great staff. I think what our fans will be proud of and excited about is we’re going to be a football team that’s going to play very excited football. We’re going to be passionate about what we do and we understand there’s a lot of work involved in order to meet our goals.”
A press conference has been scheduled for Wednesday evening.