Cleveland Browns Hire Eric Mangini
January 8, 2009 by Staff
Filed under All Sports
I have to be honest. I did not think that Eric Mangini would find a job in the NFL for quite sometime. Despite his perhaps unfair dismissal from the New York Jets, I knew he had a not so good reputation around the league, and that it was unlikely anyone would bring him on in a coordinating role without him taking sometime away from the game for maybe a season or two.
And then the Cleveland Browns hired him as their head coach. So much for my theory.
To be honest, just one more time, I don’t understand why Cleveland did this at all. Yes, Mangini may indeed be a good coach. He had 2 out of 3 winning seasons in New York, and in all 3 of those seasons he had “issues” at the quarterback position. Nevertheless, his talent as a head coach is not so evident that he should be thought of as any kind of savior. As Jets fans quickly found out, giving him the nickname “Mangenius” was very premature. And I don’t think it will be long before the Browns find out they gave him this job prematurely as well.
Let me reiterate, Mangini “may be” a very good coach, but I do not know that for sure. I think he deserved more time in New York, and had he got it, we would have gotten an answer as to whether or not he is a good coach. But based on what he did in New York, I don’t see him fixing these Browns. In New York, Mangini had the resources, the surroundings, and a very good GM. Now he takes over a team that maybe has 1 or 2 Pro Bowlers, fewer resources, and isn’t exactly the place free agents come flocking to. I just don’t understand how he is supposed to succeed.
The best Mangini should have gotten was a defensive coordinating position. But like I said, I don’t think any coaches would hire him for a spot, because frankly, he comes across as a little bit of tattle-tell after the whole Spygate fiasco last season. Supposing he eventually would have gotten such a spot, I would have liked to have seen him do something special with an underachieving defense. As far as I’m concerned, I haven’t seen him turn around a defense yet. In New England, he was just carrying out what Romeo Crennell had started, on top of Belichick being the real defensive guru on the sidelines anyway. In addition, how good were the Jets on defense over the last few years? I’ll tell you how good they were. In 2006, ’07 & ’08, Mangini’s Jets defenses finished 20th, 18th and 16th, respectively.
Oh, but you want me to give him a fair shake? I understand, that Jets defense had to be rebuilt, so it wasn’t his fault, right? Okay. So why don’t we see how wonderful his defense was during the “great year” he had in New England—you know, the season that got him hired in New York. That 2005 Patriots defense finished the season ranked 26th in the league.
