2 important things I want to look at when reviewing Mangini and our success...

[PlaygroundLegend]

The Cleveland Browns the team we love, the team that represents our city, is being meddled with once again, and I think... once again... we as fans, are missing the true cause and effect relationships that are occurring here.

The team, like any other system is made up of parts, and it can either add up to more than the sum of its parts, or less (rarely if ever does a system (with people) lie perfectly equal with the sum of its parts in terms of production). Sometimes what we think is the problem, isnt the problem at all, and the same goes for the solution. The same also goes, for when things are going well.

One thing working well this season, is our defense. Our offense is better, than before, but thats still not saying much, we can actually score now, which I guess is a good thing, but I do believe that it is owed to the additions of Ben Watson and Peyton Hillis. Which I believe were the handywork of Tom Heckert.


Back to the defense and the team as a whole, alot of people are saying that this is due to Eric Mangini. On the radio, some people call in and say that the players play for him, they have bought into his system, and his philosophy. I want to ask the question, is this really true?

After all, when the offense plays horrible (like it does) the blame is put directly on Dabs (im not saying this is wrong). If the offense played well, would Dabs get the praise? The reason I ask, is because of Rob Ryan....

Everyone is so quick to put the success of the team on Mangini's shoulders, that I think we have looked at the guy that may actually be responsible. Rob Ryan, is a guy the players love. Ive seen it in countless articles where the players talk about how much they like playing for him. But wait? I thought they played for Mangini? If the defense does well, (ryan calls the plays) then shouldnt Ryan get the majority of the credit for its radical improvement?

Some people really like the direction Mangini has this team going in, but I really want to know how much of the good, is Mangini, and how much of it is Rob, Tom, and Mike?

Mangini's main duty, is saying who plays on sunday, who gets the go. Right now, for some strange reason, Jake is playing over Seneca, a move that can definitely be held against him when Mike Holmgren does his year review. Mangini has also at times, refuses to adjust to the type of talent he has, and rather try to force certain players into roles that they dont fit.


Im not trying to bash here, but we saw what happened last year when we let Mangini run his own ship, he almost ran it into the bottom of the sea.

Looking at Erics 2 year body of work, tell me, what are some of HIS good descisions, and what are his bad ones?

Good

Instilling dicipline amongst a locker room that was basically in shambles
Hiring Rob Ryan as DC
Cutting down on penalties
Bad
The entire 2009 Draft outside of Alex Mack
Almost Every 2009 Roster move
Hiring Daboll
Occasionally being a complete Jerk
Lack of Adjustments during games
Alienation and lack of communication of/with certain players

Thats just a few, I really want to hear what everyone thinks Mangini himself has brought to this team, and what has been the handywork of others

[King of Kings]

Fyre da bum.

[hurk]

I really hope that Rob Ryan takes over as HC, or at least gets retained by Holmgren. Dude's part of the Ryan family and will be a great head coach someday - I really hope it's with us next year.

[Sez.EJ]

Rob Ryan is no head coach..He's a good DC a guy who seems fun to be around..but head coach.. No.. He wants to be everyones buddy.. Not to the point of being another Romeo.. but that does not work. He has Zero head coaching experience.. If we make a move at head coach..it needs to be a guy who has been there before.. I don't want to go through HC growing pains for 3 years.. I want Mangini.. or someone who has been there and done that.
I also want to add to your list

Good

Instilling dicipline amongst a locker room that was basically in shambles
Hiring Rob Ryan as DC
Cutting down on penalties
Players seem to love him and go to the matt playing for him.
Has not alientated players this year..he got rid of those guys.
He seems to get the most from average to below average players (most of our roster)
The guys are not freelancing but playing within the system.
Seems to work well with Heckert and Holmgren
Has not bowed to fan pressure and played Wallace (certainly Holmgren could tell him to..but Homgren wants to win games too and knows Wallace better than anyone)
Was smart enough to name Colt the Starter when healthy..
Scouting Hillis and getting Heckert to bring him in with the Quinn deal.
Was smart enough to start Hillis over the incumbent Harrison..then get rid of harrison when he cried about it.
Smart enough to bring Haden on slowly.. and now start him..
Smart enough to play rookies at all ...like Ward from day 1. (Romeo never did)
Has not complained about the front office not bringing in any recievers..
Has changed the culture on this team completely from Romeoland.
Bad
The entire 2009 Draft outside of Alex Mack
Almost Every 2009 Roster move
Hiring Daboll
Occasionally being a complete Jerk
Lack of Adjustments during games
Alienation and lack of communication of/with certain players
Poor time clock management
Has not fired Daboll.

Some of this can be placed on coaches and not mangini if you want to.. but the buck stops with him.

[nickers]

Great post PGL...But I think Hillis was Manginis brainchild pretty much and Heckert stirred the drink to get him here.

[Enigmatic Evil]

Since I can't give you any more rep at the current time Sez I'll just have to give you the courtesy +1 and I've bolded the points I agree with and will debate the points I disagree with below:

Originally Posted by Sez.EJ

Rob Ryan is no head coach..He's a good DC a guy who seems fun to be around..but head coach.. No.. He wants to be everyones buddy.. Not to the point of being another Romeo.. but that does not work. He has Zero head coaching experience.. If we make a move at head coach..it needs to be a guy who has been there before.. I don't want to go through HC growing pains for 3 years.. I want Mangini.. or someone who has been there and done that.
I also want to add to your list

Good

Instilling dicipline amongst a locker room that was basically in shambles
Hiring Rob Ryan as DC
Cutting down on penalties
Players seem to love him and go to the matt playing for him.
Has not alientated players this year..he got rid of those guys.
He seems to get the most from average to below average players (most of our roster)
The guys are not freelancing but playing within the system.
Seems to work well with Heckert and Holmgren
Has not bowed to fan pressure and played Wallace (certainly Holmgren could tell him to..but Homgren wants to win games too and knows Wallace better than anyone)
Was smart enough to name Colt the Starter when healthy..
Scouting Hillis and getting Heckert to bring him in with the Quinn deal.
Was smart enough to start Hillis over the incumbent Harrison..then get rid of harrison when he cried about it.
Smart enough to bring Haden on slowly.. and now start him..
Smart enough to play rookies at all ...like Ward from day 1. (Romeo never did)
Has not complained about the front office not bringing in any recievers..
Has changed the culture on this team completely from Romeoland.

Bad
The entire 2009 Draft outside of Alex Mack
Almost Every 2009 Roster move
Hiring Daboll
Occasionally being a complete Jerk (The Scowl... as I like to call it)
Lack of Adjustments during games
Alienation and lack of communication of/with certain players (James Davis immediately comes to mind)
Poor time clock management
Has not fired Daboll.

Some of this can be placed on coaches and not mangini if you want to.. but the buck stops with him.

Now overall I agree with the bulk of your points but there are some I disagree with:

Hiring Rob Ryan as DC: Some of you may recall, our D was TERRIBLE last year. This was with Ryan as our DC. Now, we have improved pretty much EVERY starting position this offseason and look at the improvements we've seen on that side of the ball. To me, it's boggling that we would hold one coach to one standard given the personnel upgrades on the field yet crucify Daboll given the offensive personnel is muchly the same as last season with next to no upgrades outside TE, and yet, the offense is even improved from last year.

Almost Every 2009 Roster move: Now a lot of those 2009 roster moves were for guys on the OLine, LB and Mr. Abe Elam, players that still see reps today like Womack (forgive me if he was on the team pre-09...) Bowens, Barton (if DQJ wasn't constantly hurt we wouldn't need him) and the afformentioned Elam. I think this is a mute point as Mangini was bringing in guys who would help spread the culture and mind set he was trying to instill in the team. He got rid of the players who couldn't handle that and it's a big reason the team is in the position it is in this year.

Hiring Daboll/Not Firing Daboll: Sure Dabs is Mangini's buddy but really, it goes back to the shit sandwich analogy I made in Danamal's thread. We have mediocre personnel manning most offensive starting positions. We could bring in a new OC but without improving the starters or even the depth of those starting positions such as WR where we're especially barren, I don't see a superior OC suddenly changing the way this offense performs.

Poor time clock management: Now do you pin this on Mangini or Daboll? I would blame things like irratic and sometimes ridiculous usage of timeouts or challenges on Mangini because that's his call but clock managment is typically on the offense is it not?

I realize some of these are PGL's points and some are Sez but overall I think I laid out all my major beefs with these lines of discussion here.

[Sez.EJ]

Thanks EE but you missed something really big when you mention the offense is essentially the same but for tight ends.. Hillis and every QB is different.. DA and Quinn are gone.. Hillis and the QB change are Major.. not an attack non you ..but hardly a minor change to the offense. The QB position..while still needs upgraded..is night and day better than last year.

[Enigmatic Evil]

Fair enough Sez, but the reason I downplay that as a non-major change is that with the exception of Colt McCoy our QB's aren't really that better. Jake Delhomme's play has been miserable this year and though people are desperate to rationalize that Seneca Wallace should have started a game or two in there, his play hasn't exactly been worth writing home about either.

Hillis is the ONLY major upgrade, where we lacked a consistent running game last season we have one for the most part this year but overall our offense is pretty much the same as it was last year with a minor upgrade at QB and considerable upgrades at HB and TE. Overall though, the major components of the offense are comparable to last season with the same personnel at WR with an extra years experience (players like Stuckey for example have really stood out compared to last season).

Don't worry about the attack/non-attack Sez, I am not scared of a little debate.

[Sez.EJ]

EE wow.. I really have to disagree.. DA was a pathetic joke.. even as poor as Wallace and Jake are..they are 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, times better than DA.. I think I would have killed myself if I had to watch that buttmonkey again.

[Enigmatic Evil]

I can agree that Delhomme and Seneca are a moderate upgrade over Derek Anderson and Brady Quinn who both managed bafflingly awful play behind center for us last season. However, Jake has played on par with either of those two in the games he has started this season. I'd say only Seneca has really proven he's a decent upgrade, and not by much. I continue to assert that Colt's the only true upgrade we've got at the QB position. Overall though, our QB play hasn't been astonishingly better than last year. HAS it been better? Yes, unquestionably, but by how much?

In my opinion, not really that much. Everyone outside Colt (who has had some games where he just didn't put up any numbers, even without a major gaffe) has had plays where we just shake our heads where as DA or BQ played entire games where they just looked awful out there.

[King of Kings]

I miss Brady Queen.

[MackTruck]

Mangini was the driving force behind Haden. The scouting staff wanted that Wilson kid. Mangini wanted Haden and Holmgren sided with him and broke the tie.

JD's big problem is he can't keep up with NFL speeds anymore. It takes him more than 3 seconds to unload the ball and you simply can't have that in the NFL. The OL could have done a better job in protecting him but that would have just hid his weakness.........age. The whole "WR weren't open" line was bs. Mangini lied. They were open and Mo was open TWICE for huge plays as he was uncovered due to the Bills stacking the line. JD saw him but due to his slow release, couldn't get the ball away.

Watch his Super Bowl game vs. the Patriots 7 years ago. Totally different QB. Father time sucks lol.