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Home > Blogs > Dawging the Browns > Archives > 2009 > January > 09 > Entry
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.
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Comments
By john
January 10, 2009 9:53 AM | Link to this
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha…. Pro sports isn’t ALL about winning! It’s about making a profit for some owner(group). Some sports franchises NEVER win, (Reds, Pirates, Bengals, Cleveland). In each case the owner(group) faithfully fire, then hire a parade of coaches that sports writers then make their pay on, wringing their ink-stained hands over. All the while cities that host these losers increase taxes on the taxpayers and decrease them on the owner(group), while ticket and cable prices climb. All the while the “sports fan” is hostage to the same pap that some writer wrote about three or four years earlier about the last coach! My advice to the fans - get a life, admit these teams will NEVER win and adopt something else to love other than a loser. One of my former favorites is mentioned above and I pay no attention to them anymore ‘cause I don’t need the negativity. But note! Throughout it all, the owner(group) remains unscathed and much like the common roach, continues to prosper!!! (I apologize to the common roach for comparing you to some sports team owners(groups))By Gary
January 10, 2009 5:01 PM | Link to this
Sean, you are just upset we didn’t hire your buddy Bilick who you’ve been pushing for. Get over it….By Sean McClelland
January 10, 2009 7:15 PM | Link to this
No, Gary, if I’m upset (maybe too strong a word), it would be because they didn’t hire a head coach who’s actually won anything, and now none of the top GM candidates wants to interview because they’ll have zero input in picking the coach. How is this different from the Butch Davis/Pete Garcia fiasco, where the head coach brings along his buddy to run the personnel department? Thought we were done with that model.By AP-FLORIDA
January 11, 2009 6:34 AM | Link to this
I am glad they didn’t hire billick. He wasn’t smart enough to know he needed a quarterbackBy Jamie
January 11, 2009 7:29 AM | Link to this
I said it from day one. We should have kept Savage. He’s the only reason we “improved” in the last four years. Improved in quotations because drafting a Brady Quinn or a Joe Thomas is an improvement over a Tim Couch or a Courtney Brown. I still think Savage was a pompous a*s but at least we didn’t have someone with only three years as ahead coach and a losing record running the entire organization. If this ship sinks I want Lerner to sell it. Not sure him or his dad know what they’re doing.By Jack
January 12, 2009 10:57 AM | Link to this
Is it too late to ask Savage to come back…seriously? Evidently the only qualifications that Lerner looks for is that at some point you had to work under Billichek in Cleveland.By professor
January 12, 2009 12:17 PM | Link to this
People seem to forget the passes and the ongoing public and media mistakes Savage made and continued to make.By photoman
January 12, 2009 5:22 PM | Link to this
Where are the Browns gonna go anyway, with Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Cleveland in the same division? I don’t think it matters who the coach is, the owner just needs a warm body.By Jack
January 13, 2009 2:28 PM | Link to this
I think the one big thing that people fail to realize is the importance of the schedule. Two years ago, easy schedule. The Browns peaked a year earlier then most people thought, which caused their schedule to get more difficult. Not only was the schedule going to be more difficult because of the NFC East, for the other divisions we had to play the Top 2 teams. Next year, the schedule is way easier with the AFC West and by virtue of our last place finish, we will have the easiest schedule in our division. It is the same reason Baltimore made the jump this year and the same reason why they will not be as good next year. The Browns will again make that jump. Will it be 10-6 or 8-8, cant tell you that, but they will be more competitive by just who they play. While I cant say I predicted 4-12 (i was optimistic 8-8), I knew we were in for a down year. A good draft and we should have a good to great year.