Hue Jackson will make good on an old promise later this week by jumping into Lake Erie. He won't be alone.
Jackson, who will take a brief swim Friday because of a pledge made at the end of the 2016 season, said more than 100 team employees will join him in what he has described as something of a cleansing.
"It's going to be a fun time, it's going to be something that's special to me and the organization and everybody involved," he said Wednesday, "because this is going to turn the page on a lot of things that have gone on here."
Jackson, following a 1-15 season in 2016, vowed to take a dip in the lake if the Browns finished with that record the following year. They went winless in 2017.
The jump will be held in a private location and is reserved only for staff members. For every Browns employee who joins him Friday, Jackson will donate $100 toward the Hue Jackson Foundation, which combats human trafficking across Northeast Ohio. Jackson said he's invited the coaching staff to jump, too, and will pitch his players later this week.
Jackson and his wife, Michelle, launched their foundation last summer. In collaboration with the Salvation Army, they are set to open a residence home in Cleveland for human trafficking survivors in July.
Jackson, who has approached the spectacle with an appropriate degree of humor, said he plans to get in and out of the lake as quickly as possible.
"We're going in, and we're going to come out, too," he said, laughing. "I promise you that."
