Hmmm...some of us are not the only ones???

[eqrulz101]

Mangini being fired is just another bad decision in a long line of bad decisions. This team was making obvious strides in the right direction with out any talent. Mangini built a base that worked well together as a team. Throw in some talent and those close losses would have been wins. We was one year away with solid offseason. Now we are starting over and 3 years away, at least, and that’s IF, again let me emphasize a big IF, we get the right head coach in here. The list of names I hear do not sound promising and who would want to take a job that is known to fire their coaches after 2 years? Nobody of talent.

Damn Holmgren and his ego. You guys trust him if you want, but this was a huge mistake on his part and we as fans will be paying for it for years.

Glad some of you are happy, for me I am sick of watching losing and saying next year. Well this year, I actually believed in next year....

Until Mangini was fired.

[Flugel]

Originally Posted by Riffer X

Deposed Mangini trumpets Browns' progress, has few regrets - NFL - CBSSports.com Football

In another place, at another time, Eric Mangini would not have been fired. So he didn't win many games this season with the Cleveland Browns. Neither did Gary Kubiak in Houston. But Kubiak is back and Mangini is not because the Houston Texans have the patience that Cleveland does not.
That is not a knock on the Browns. It's an observation.

GREAT article! Many thanks for sharing that Riff!

I hope people realize how much the guy put into trying to make this a better franchise. He came with no front office, 1 draft pick left from 2008 and only 4 picks scheduled for 2009. 2010 was the FIRST draft we've had since returning to football. I would have liked to have seen him get a 3rd swing in the batter's box.

I think we're all coming to the realization that this was done backwards with hiring the Head Coach before the President and other significant front office personnel.

[Flugel]

Originally Posted by Vegasdogg

I have always been a big fan of Eric's. He took unnecessary and completely childish bullshit from our idiotic press right from the get go. Then I would listen to his pressers (and read them) and wonder WTF are these people talking about? Complete bullshit and a hatchet job by the so-called press/media. And some people wonder why I hate the media.

Class act and I think a really good guy, good person, always came across as a guy who wanted to see all players do well -- even Braylon and Winslow. He just didn't come across to me as a guy that deserved any of this animosity and childish slanders that 95% of the time NEVER proved to be true. Never.

If I were Eric I probably wouldn't have done much different either. I don't think his strong points are putting the best 22 on the field, nor do I think his job was made easier by giving him a new set of QB's to teach his offensive philosophy to, but then again his offensive philosophy left a lot to be desired.

In the end his losses to seemingly lesser teams did him in. His teams could not finish last season either until the last 4 games. But it never seemed that he got this team 'on track.' While it is to be commended that he actually got all the players moving in one direction and with one purpose, the results just did not materialize as proof of those efforts.

Holmgren got to see it all behind the scenes at practice during every week - how they installed the offense/defense, how they game planned for specific opponents, how they handled 3rd downs and 2 minutes, how they developed game plans - and might have determined that what happened on game day was a direct result of some shortcomings during the week.

I do know that Mike is front and center now and he has plenty of help determining who is the best fit for he and Tom Heckert. We would be in terrible shape had we kept Mangini and hacked Tom Heckert, but that didn't happen. We kept the correct guy and now we have to fill in the head coach and coordinators/position coaches, which could be a good thing. It could have been more than just Eric, it could very well be his choices for these positions that also left Mike scratching his head.

Anyway, I like Eric Mangini and think he seems to be a really good human being. I want to see him coaching again for sure.

Excellent post Vegas! Land ho on common ground! Forget that other thread we were barking hard and growling harder at each other.

Was there a problem brewing between Mangini and Heckert? I got the impression they worked very well together predraft when we saw how good both Haden and Ward looked. And then Holmgren picking McCoy pretty much assured me it was a really good trio.

I hope Holmgren and Heckert find a good slew of candidates to interview. I'll be curious to see how much interest there is in Cleveland now that Holmgren and Heckert are here improving the front office competance considerably.

Mangini will bounce back somewhere. Worst case scenario - he settles back in as a Coordinator. When I lived in Rochester, NY - Greg Williams (current DC of New Orleans) was Buffalo's Head Coach and it was a disappointing disaster for all parties. Now look at him. Other options are to consider being a college Head Coach like Pete Carrol and Kirk Ferentz did.

To be a successful Head Coach in the NFL it sure helps to have the right QB and a front office like Indy, New England and Pittsburgh has. I liked the microwave reference Mangini usedbecause nothign happens until infrastructure is in tact followed by a series of good drafts. Teams like Indy and Pitt always seem to pride themselves in how infrequently they need to resort to overspending on free agents. That's what building through the draft has done for them. Before that Polian was the man behind Buffalo's 4 consecutive Superbowl apearances.

[Vegasdogg]

Originally Posted by Flugel

I hope people realize how much the guy put into trying to make this a better franchise. He came with no front office, 1 draft pick left from 2008 and only 4 picks scheduled for 2009. 2010 was the FIRST draft we've had since returning to football. I would have liked to have seen him get a 3rd swing in the batter's box.

Tom, to be fair, and most of the Browns fans I know like Eric Mangini, but I am waiting for the day someone tells me we let go of one of the best football minds in the business. A true schematic and strategic genius that caused fits for PIT, BAL and CIN every time we played them.

Was he a great developmental coach? A foundation builder and mentor to rookies and young players? A man who asked for and sought after the anti-Braylon, and it worked for the locker room?

YES!

BUT......

Was he a great schemer and game planner? On Sunday? Did he bring the best 45 to the game?

Being a longtime Browns fan....I challenge you to answer this honestly.

[Vegasdogg]

double tap

[Vegasdogg]

Originally Posted by Flugel

To be a successful Head Coach in the NFL it sure helps to have the right QB and a front office like Indy, New England and Pittsburgh has. I liked the microwave reference Mangini usedbecause nothign happens until infrastructure is in tact followed by a series of good drafts. Teams like Indy and Pitt always seem to pride themselves in how infrequently they need to resort to overspending on free agents. That's what building through the draft has done for them. Before that Polian was the man behind Buffalo's 4 consecutive Superbowl apearances.

Agree 100% Tom.

Not much to add to your post above.

[Flugel]

Originally Posted by Vegasdogg

Tom, to be fair, and most of the Browns fans I know like Eric Mangini, but I am waiting for the day someone tells me we let go of one of the best football minds in the business. A true schematic and strategic genius that caused fits for PIT, BAL and CIN every time we played them.

Was he a great developmental coach? A foundation builder and mentor to rookies and young players? A man who asked for and sought after the anti-Braylon, and it worked for the locker room?

YES!

BUT......

Was he a great schemer and game planner? On Sunday? Did he bring the best 45 to the game?

Being a longtime Browns fan....I challenge you to answer this honestly.

Will do. There were games I scratched my head on and I wrote about it. When ALOT of people were complaining about the playcalling vrs TB - I chimed in my biggest beef was there wasn't 1 person on the coaching staff that noticed Delhomme couldn't plant and throw off an injured ankle. I was pissed. That was misusing personnel IMO.

There were other games they threw away when Delhomme turned into Ricky Ankiel (ie; Buffalo). If he doesn't believe in himself - 21 other starters won't either. End result? Buffalo was allowed to play 11 guys against the run. I was pissed and posted about it. The time management stuff was also bad. I just felt some of this was correctable.

Here's the thoughts I never lost sight of. When Mangini was needed for hire in NY - he took the group of players Herm Edwards get fired with and went 10-6. Some good drafts already in tact and a 10-6 record for a rookie Head Coach. It shows me an ability to win in the absence of handcuffs. In addition, he began adding the following players: Darrelle Revis, David Harris, D'Brickashaw Ferguson, Dustin Keller, Nick Mangold, Alan Faneca, etc. Aside from that when he's had decent healthy QBs, his teams always looked good. I think EM's Jets won 9 of the 11 or 12 games Brett Favre was healthy for. They were projecting to better Pennington's 10 wins from 2006.

Relating the QBs thing to the Browns, I think the Browns ALWAYS looked better when Colt McCoy was starting. And to be honest, Fujita was the QB of our defense and got hurt midway through the Jets game. The Defensive Coordination looked WAY better when the QB of our Defense was in there. Did any defense harass Brady and Brees more than ours? This franchise was REALLY getting respected around the league when our QB on offense and defense was healthy. I thought the turning point for the worse was midway through the Jets game when we lost Yates, Fujita which impacted 5 different positions believe it or not. Womack had to move from RT to RG which put our #3 guy on the depth chart (St Clair) back in as starting RT. Bowens had to go from playing both outside and inside to playing outside, which meant barton became a fulltimer inside and YUCK! ALOT of areas they tried to upgrade an offseason ago - just got reversed in a hurry and it showed on the field more than people think. In addition, Cribbs had 4 dislocated so he wasn't the same player we saw the year before.

Try to think where our passing game had any of these favorable matchups AND how much we trusted Delhomme on the rare occasions we did. Ben Watson was the only memorable receiver on the team when it's all said and done. How difficult do you think it was to call plays for the 49ers when they had Rice, Craig, Rathman, Taylor, Jones/Frank/Francis with Montana chucking the strikes? Favorable matchups where there's zero strain in calling plays. Trust me. I'm more about the Jimmys and Joes than the Xs and Os. We've seen BB not looking like a smart coach when Philcox was his QB and we've seen him looking brilliant when Tom Brady was his QB. If that doesn't work, Tony Dungy got fired for Trent Dilfer/Sean King while he got a Lombardi Trophy via Peyton Manning.

[golfer704u]

Originally Posted by Vegasdogg

Tom, to be fair, and most of the Browns fans I know like Eric Mangini, but I am waiting for the day someone tells me we let go of one of the best football minds in the business. A true schematic and strategic genius that caused fits for PIT, BAL and CIN every time we played them.

Was he a great developmental coach? A foundation builder and mentor to rookies and young players? A man who asked for and sought after the anti-Braylon, and it worked for the locker room?

YES!

BUT......

Was he a great schemer and game planner? On Sunday? Did he bring the best 45 to the game?

Being a longtime Browns fan....I challenge you to answer this honestly.

Here's my answer to that. The qualities you talk about that Mangini has, I agree. And those are qualities that men who can lead other men have. Not every coordinator or coach has them, and you don't LEARN those types of skills. You either have what it takes to be a leader, or you don't.

Now Schemer and gameday planner? THOSE are things that you can learn and get better at.

It's harder to find a HC that is the right LEADER than it is to find a coordinator to coach under him to do the right scheme.

I'll ask you this. Pittsburgh is a GREAT orginization right? Do you think either Cowher or Tomlin are great "schemers"? No they have two solid coordinaotrs under them who handle that for them. They are the LEADERS of the team.

Romeo Crennel is a GREAT defensive schemer, but he was an AWFUL HC. Wade Phillips is a GREAT Defenseive Schemer, AWFUL HC. Josh McDaniels, people think he did wonders with DEN offensive shceme, AWFUL HC. shal I go on?

that's my worry now. Browns fans and maybe even Holmgren were so worried about who our offensive "scheme" looked that they will higher the best offensive coordinator they can find as HC. And that's not what you need as a HC.

I hope they get it right. I have some trust that Holmgren and Heckert are smart enough to get it right. But as a Browns fan it worries me given our past hires.

Eric Mangini was as close to the right leader of men I've seen since Marty Shottenhimer. Butch Davis wasn't bad either. Davis and Magnini both need strong GMs over them, neither had it in their first year, Davis never had one. We have one now. But that doesn't mean you can just hire any coordinator to be HC and it will work.

and the wrong hire sets us back 4 more years.