Getty Images

For most teams, the prospect of hiring Hue Jackson to be the head coach would be met with spit-take belly laughs. For the Bengals, it could be a dead-serious proposition.

Jason La Canfora of CBS reports on a rumor that has indeed been making the rounds, ever since Jackson became Cincinnati’s answer to Dwight Schrute. If head coach Marvin Lewis leaves, would Hue Jackson take over?

Jackson’s name has surfaced because he remains well thought of in Cincinnati, due to his prior efforts there as an assistant. But that leads back to the Norv Turner/Wade Phillips conundrum, where coaches who have excelled as coordinators simply can’t get it done as the head coach, but they keep getting chances to become head coaches because they keep getting it done as coordinators.

Bengals owner Mike Brown may not care about that. With Jackson surely anxious to get a chance to prove that his time in Cleveland was a 3-36-1 aberration, Brown — who is extremely careful with his money — likely would be able to buy low. Which in turn would make it easier to buy out Jackson if things don’t work out.

Indeed, with no other team beating a path to Jackson’s door, Brown could be able to negotiate a contract with little or no future guarantees, making it a pay-as-you-go-type arrangement, allowing Brown to cut the cord whenever it appears that Jackson isn’t getting it done.

Then there’s the broader question of how the local fans would react to a decision to hire Jackson. Even if there’s a way to hire Jackson while keeping expenses low, giving him a chance to coach Ohio’s other NFL team could impact revenue by prompting paying customers to no longer be paying customers.