San Diego Chargers-Cleveland Browns: Long Road to Ruin

After injuries decimated what little talent is left on the Cleveland Browns defensive unit, the long, slow, painful march to the end of the season officially begins.

While the defense ranked last in the league before the injuries, coordinator Rob Ryan always managed to keep things looking interesting. You always got the feeling if Ryan could get a major talent upgrade, this defense could be in the top five.

I hate playing around with “ifs,” but it’s all Browns fans have to play with this year. "If this had happened," or "if that hadn’t happened" seem to be the two repeated motifs when it comes to talking about the Browns.

With basically a Division III college defense out on the field, it’s hard to comprehend how this team will match up against the San Diego Chargers and running back LaDanian Tomlinson. Tomlinson, who with 12,257 career rushing yards is on the cusp of passing Jim Brown’s career mark, won’t have to worry about injured nose tackle Shaun Rogers, the Browns only real threat.

Tomlinson has 148 carries for 497 yards and eight touchdowns. The Chargers offense is ranked 15th overall.

Even if completely healthy, the talent head coach Eric Mangini assembled on defense probably wasn’t going to perform much better against that offense, so any notion of blaming upcoming failures on the injury bug should be squashed immediately.

Turning to the Browns offense, which is ranked 31st in the league, the differences are astounding. While the Browns defense consistently has shown signs of life before collapsing in the second half, the Browns offense poked its nose out of it’s hole in the ground against Detroit before quickly retreating into the darkness again.

The difference between the Brown’s coordinators is very fascinating. As I said about Ryan before, I get the feeling Ryan could field one of the top defenses in the league if given the right talent.

I don’t get that feeling with offensive coordinator Brian Daboll. I think if you gave Daboll Peyton Manning and a bunch of Hall of Fame Receivers and backed it up with Adrian Peterson at running back, this offense still wouldn’t make it out of the bottom 10 teams.

I’ve released my anger toward Daboll’s incompetence. It’s not his fault he was promoted to a position his resume clearly shows he didn’t earn or deserve. That fault lies squarely on the shoulders of Mangini.

Mangini took an organization in need of rebuilding and made it worse. Instead of laying a foundation, Mangini nuked what little was left of it.

As a coach, he has failed to develop two quarterbacks, an offensive coordinator, several offensive lineman, killed the career of a potential Hall of Fame running back and probably set the organization back another three years.

Mangini’s coaching style now can be criticized as being obstinate, not open to any ideas that don’t come from himself and paranoid to the point of paralysis. It’s become clear that Mangini does not tolerate any challenges to his authority, benign or otherwise.

When former general manager George Kokinis tried to assert his authority, per his contract, Mangini squashed him.

When he needed an offensive coordinator, he hired someone who wouldn’t challenge his ideas and would do exactly what was being fed down the pipeline because there would be no other option available. It’s not like Daboll is some offensive coordinator prodigy waiting to become the next Lindy Infante.

After losing to Detroit, Mangini tried throwing Lion’s head coach Jim Shwartz under the bus. With the mounting injuries and pressure to show any kind of progress, the question to ponder today is who’s next to fall victim to Mangini’s campaign to deflect blame?

Whoever gets blamed, the final score probably won't be pretty; Chargers 45, Browns 7.