Meadowdale H.S. graduation 2012
Middletown H.S. graduation 2012
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Home > Blogs > Dawging the Browns > Archives > 2009 > January > 09
Friday, January 9, 2009
Pluses and minuses of Mangenius
Hard to know what to make of the Eric Mangini hire. Generally, while it’s not inconceivable that it could work, here are my reservations:
What’s he ever won? A three-year record of 23-26 with the Jets hardly sends pulses pounding. Throw in the team’s complete collapse at the end of this season and his subsequent firing and, well, I guess we’re supposed to blame the whole thing on Brett Favre? That was Mangini (nee: Mangenius) standing on the sideline all those weeks, remember, as the Jets’ playoff hopes evaporated in the Meadowlands mist.
Yes, yes, plenty of Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks were canned from previous jobs, including Bill Belichick and Tony Dungy, but it’s hard to get past the whole collapse-followed-by-firing scenario that just played out in New York. Maybe it’s just me.
There’s no general manager yet. Thought the idea was to build a true football organization from the top down. So now you’re in a position where the coach is essentially picking the general manager rather than the other way around. Again, it could work, but it’s not ideal. If Phil Savage had been retained as GM, at least some scouting structure would have remained in place.
Nobody else seemed to want the guy. Maybe it had something to do with that late-season collapse. (No, I can’t get it out of my mind.)
The Belichick coaching tree has root rot. The fruit from this thing … well … let’s just say it hasn’t been so sweet. Romeo Crennel. Charlie Weis. Mangini. Two have been fired and the other, Weis, probably should be.
Owner Randy Lerner was swept off his feet in the interview. The last head coach to win Lerner over with a sales job was, of course, Crennel, and we know what happened there.
In the interest of fairness, here are a few factors that work in the Browns’ favor with the Mangini hire:
1. He’s young. While this could mean he still has more mistakes to make, it also should mean he’s got a good amount of energy with which to turn this mess around.
2. He seems to understand where he is. The Browns are largely irrelevant in the NFL these days and have been for years, but Mangini is a student of the game who knows there was a time when they weren’t. At least that’s how he made it sound during his press conference.
3. Motivation. Fired by the Jets after that monumental collapse (there it is again, can’t help it), he has plenty to prove.
