Browns fire Eric Mangini

Yesterday's loss for the Cleveland Browns to the Pittsburgh Steelers was so awful that words cant describe it.
I went to bed with two minutes to in the first half and that is something that I have never done since starting this blog,but I just couldn't reconcile getting short rest to watch the end of something that terrible.
In that vein,there will be no coverage here of the defeat,just some thoughts on the axing of Eric Mangini.
The best news of yesterday for Cleveland fans?
Wins by San Francisco,Dallas,Detroit and Houston allowed the Browns to jump over all four of those teams in the draft order.
Had all of those teams finished 5-11 instead of 6-10,the Browns would have picked behind all of them as the Browns tougher schedule than all of those teams would relegated Cleveland to the 10th spot.
Instead,Cleveland moves to sixth overall.
Let the calling for A.J Green-Georgia wide receiver begin.
It might take some luck for Green to fall to sixth,but it is possible,
Here is hoping this works out better than last years finger crossing for Eric Berry!

Eric Mangini's fate as the coach in Cleveland was sealed by three decisions that made a third season an insurmountable climb.
The first was his terrible draft with the only draft that he controlled in 2009.
When Mangini defenders want to rail about the "lack of talent",ask them about the 2009 draft that produced three starters,but two of the three (Brian Robiskie and Mohammed Massquoi) would start for no other team besides Cleveland.
The decisions to trade down multiple times in the first round in that draft to accumulate extra picks that turned out to be the David Veikunes of the world was a main contributor to the lack of talent.

The second decision was the hiring of Mike Holmgren to run the team from an executive position.
It was clear from day one that Holmgren and Mangini's ideas of football were ones that were incompatible and no matter how hard either tried to spin it,this was doomed to failure.
This was Mangini's fault only in that the 2009 Browns were so terrible for the first three quarters of the season that the usually distant Randy Lerner felt he had to do something to toss a bone to a frothing fan base at the time.

The final and the one call that made this inevitable was the decision by Eric Mangini to keep Brian Daboll as the offensive coordinator despite the calls by most everyone to replace him after the 2009 season.
Had Mangini went with a suggestion of Holmgren's and removed the dull blunderings of Daboll before this season,it is possible that maybe one or two of the close losses go the Browns way.
7-9 against a difficult schedule and working more with a Mike Holmgren friendly style of play might have meant a 2011 return for Eric Mangini.
I admire Mangini's loyalty to his friend,but from a business/career standpoint,this meant the clock was ticking unless the Browns played over their head and got some breaks.

I do give Eric Mangini some credit.
Under his leadership,the Browns focused on high character players that didn't get into trouble and when they did (Braylon Edwards),he moved them along.
One could say that he took this too much into consideration,but despite the losing the Browns didn't have the players into trouble like their AFC North rivals such as Pittsburgh (Ben Rothlisberger),Baltimore (Murderin' Ray Lewis) or Cincinnati (the dog and pony show that featured every headcase known to man).
Cleveland at least didn't have much of that going on.

In the end,Cleveland had little choice and the end of the season losses meant even Mangini could not claim true improvement.
The marriage was doomed from the start,better to end it now and move towards a brighter future for both parties.

I have plenty more to hammer out over the next two days.
A post on the top candidates for the Browns head coaching job,a look at the Devils weekend and Maryland football losing their one chance to shoot for the moon...

Photo Credit-John Kuntz-Cleveland Plain Dealer