Tag: Eric Mangini (Page 3 of 13)

      Jerome Harrison is better than Jim Brown

      December 20, 2009 /

      Really? No, not really. In fact, Cleveland fans might have me shot for even remotely joking about something like that. But Harrison did prove on Sunday that he’s even more dangerous than the Dos Equis Guy.

      Harrison rushed for a franchise record 286 yards and three touchdowns on 34 carries, while adding two receptions for 12 yards in Cleveland’s 41-34 win. He scored the game-winning touchdown with under a minute to play to give Cleveland back to back winning weeks for the first time this season. Harrison now holds Cleveland’s all-time record for rushing yards in a game, surpassing the great Jim Brown.

      Harrison was so good that he managed to overshadow Josh Cribbs, which was hard to do on a day like this. Cribbs tied an NFL record with two kick returns for touchdowns, both of which came from over 100 yards out. He is now the all-time record holder for kickoff return touchdowns, with eight in his career.

      Regardless of whether or not Mike Holmgren takes over in Cleveland, the Browns have to do everything in their power to make Cribbs happy in the offseason. He threatened to hold out this past summer if the Browns didn’t re-do his contract, which they didn’t. He never held out and has been the Browns best player this season, so the team’s first mission in the offseason should resolve his contract dispute.

      Speaking of the Browns’ offseason, what should they do with Eric Mangini? He was an easy fire a couple of months ago when the Browns were hapless, hopeless and completely lost, but they’ve played well of late. Should he keep his job or should the Browns start over if/when Holmgren comes to town? Usually head coaches are fired when the team is heading backwards, but Cleveland is actually moving forward.

      NFL

      Report: Mangini could be out if Holmgren is hired

      December 17, 2009 /

      NFL.com’s Jason La Canfora reports that if the Browns hire Mike Holmgren to run the football operations in Cleveland, head coach Eric Mangini would likely be shown the door.

      Holmgren, retired for a year and nearing the end of his football career, likely would want a fresh direction for the team and his own coach. Specifically, he is likely to reach back to his Bill Walsh/West Coast family tree for his coach, seeking someone who shares the same philosophies, terminology, vernacular and football ideology.

      Mangini comes from the Bill Belichick/Bill Parcells tree, which is the inverse as Walsh’s tree in many ways. Mangini also has been a controversial figure in Cleveland during his one year there, making it all the more likely that a new president might want to start from scratch with the coaching staff.

      When Parcells got to Miami, he immediately fired Cam Cameron, who had only been the Dolphins’ head coach for one brutal season. It didn’t make sense for Parcells to retain Cameron when he wanted one of his guys (Tony Sparano) to run the team. The same could be said for Holmgren. If he doesn’t think Mangini is a fit, there’s no sense wasting another year to see if the two could work together. Cut bait and move on.

      Since Holmgren is a West Coast guy, some of the names being thrown around as an eventual replacement for Mangini include Jon Gruden, Steve Mariucci (meh), Jim Zorn (ugh), Dick Jauron (ugh!) and Marty Mornhinweg (ugh!!). If I were a Cleveland fan, the only person that I would want to see walking the sidelines in that group is Gruden, although Mariucci wouldn’t be a horrible choice. The other three – Zorn, Jauron and Mornhinweg – have proven that they make better coordinators than head coaches.

      NFL

      Decade Debate: 10 Worst NFL Head Coaching Hires

      December 8, 2009 /

      Perhaps more than any other sport, a bad head coaching hire in the NFL can ruin a franchise for the better part of a decade. When you consider the free agent and draft acquisitions that are made to fit a coach’s style and philosophy, it’s no wonder that it usually takes years for a team to rebound after a bad coaching hire. As part of our ongoing Decade Debate series, here are the 10 worst head coaching hires of the past decade. To be clear, this ranking is based on the result of the hire, and not necessarily the hire itself. (Although the ranking could be a combination of the two.)

      10. Eric Mangini, Cleveland Browns, 2009

      One might argue that since Mangini hasn’t even gotten through his first year in Cleveland yet that he doesn’t deserve to be on this list. But others will argue that since he was absolutely despised in New York that the Browns should have never hired him in the first place. After all, was the one winning season he had with the Jets worth the Browns giving him a shot? Some of the moves that Mangini has made since arriving in Cleveland haven’t been bad at all: Trading Braylon Edwards and Kellen Winslow, trading down multiple times to acquire more picks in the draft, acquiring safety Abram Elam, etc. But considering he hasn’t won many players over with his crass attitude, has made two quarterback changes and only has one win under his belt, things couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start in Cleveland. It’ll be interesting to see if the Browns fire him after only one season.

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      NFL

      Browns considering signing LeBron James

      November 18, 2009 /

      …okay, not really. But LeBron did say recently that he could succeed in NFL if he put in the time and Browns head coach Eric Mangini has a helmet waiting for him if he ever wants to give it a try.

      From ESPN.com:

      “If I put all my time and commitment into it, if I dedicated myself to the game of football, I could be really good,” he said Tuesday night, “no matter what team I was on.”

      Mangini agreed, calling James “a freak athletically” and said the 6-foot-8, 260-pounder could be dangerous at tight end, wide receiver or even outside linebacker.

      Quarterback Brady Quinn also heard about James’ football fetish. He would love to have a target to throw to like James in the red zone.
      “That’d be great,” Quinn said. “Tell him to suit up and let us know, we’ll get him working. Obviously he’s an incredibly talented athlete. If he wants to try to play a little bit now, we’d be more than willing to pick him up.”

      Browns nose tackle Shaun Rogers isn’t convinced James, as great as he is, could step into the NFL and be able to handle the pounding.
      “I heard that comment,” Rogers said. “I have mixed emotions about that. A great athlete? Yes. A football player? No.”

      Rogers then looked into TV cameras.

      “Yeah LeBron, I said it,” he said. “It’s a punishing game. I just don’t think you can step off the basketball court after not going through this year in and year out and just play football. From that standpoint, I just don’t think it’s possible. You have to weather and condition your body to take this punishment.”

      That’s all the Cavs and the city of Cleveland needs: For LeBron hurt playing for a 1-8 Browns team going nowhere fast.

      Given how gifted an athlete James is, I could see him succeeding in the NFL if he put in the time. But I agree with Rogers in that he couldn’t just step onto the field this Sunday and have an impact. For starters, he’s never run a pro route and he’s never read a defense. If he was told to just run straight down the field and then look for the ball, I could see him making a play or two. But he’d be lost if he were to start a game without practicing and I could only imagine him getting laid out going across the middle.

      The front office for the Cavs would rather die than see this come to fruition, but I would love to see LeBron play for just one game to see how he’d do – even if it were just for a couple of plays.

      Of course, that would require Brady Quinn to throw a pass longer than three yards in bounds, which is something I seriously doubt he could handle.

      NBA, NFL

      Quinn, Browns give putrid effort in another putrid loss

      November 17, 2009 /

      Eleven first downs, 160 total yards and zero points.

      After two weeks to prepare for their opposition, that’s what the Cleveland Browns produced on Monday night in a 16-0 loss to the Baltimore Ravens.

      Nobody should be surprised by the outcome of Monday night’s game in Cleveland. Everyone knew that the Browns were awful entering the game, but to actually watch that miserable excuse of a team stumble over themselves for 60 minutes is rather amazing. It’s like a car wreck – you just can’t look away.

      Brady Quinn is bad, so bad that it’s safe to say that he has zero chance of becoming anything resembling a decent starting quarterback in the NFL. I’m fully aware that he has no talent around him, but I dare anyone to watch that kid play for entire game and tell me he has any shot of success in this league. His own coaching staff doesn’t trust him to throw the ball further than two feet and I wouldn’t either. The Monday Night Football crew kept begging for the Browns to throw the ball vertically and whenever Quinn did, he was either picked off or was so far off the mark with his passes that there wasn’t a receiver within 20 yards of where the ball ended up.

      Again, I know that he doesn’t have anyone to throw to but there’s just no excuse for being that inept. The Browns didn’t even reach the Ravens’ 40-yard line tonight and don’t forget that this was a Baltimore defense that has struggled at times this year stopping the pass. On multiple occasions late in the game when he was trying to make a feeble attempt at throwing deep, Quinn tossed the ball completely out of bounds. That means he’s so inaccurate with his throws that he can’t even keep the ball in play. He even overthrew a receiver on a screen pass, which is so mind-boggling that it pisses me off just thinking about it.

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      NFL

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