How Eric Mangini Can Be Successful in Cleveland

With the Pittsburgh Steelers coming to town Thursday night, this past Sunday’s game versus the Chargers was an indicator of how head coach Eric Mangini could be successful.

In short, just don’t stink up the joint.

At a deeper level, the Chargers game shows how just a little success goes a long way with Cleveland fans. Now that the Browns have shown they can be competitive against a good team, the mood, all of a sudden, has changed.

The beat reporters, and even some of the fans, now are saying “the process” may actually be starting to work, and “not so fast” on this whole “fire Mangini” idea.

There are two problems with that line of thinking, the first being there still are four games left in the season. The second problem is the overall problem in Cleveland still exists.

One good showing against the Chargers didn’t magically erase the gaping holes in the Browns' upper management, or the string of bodies Mangini has thrown under the bus along the way in his quest to deflect blame for his failures.

A win against the Steelers on Thursday, barring a complete meltdown in the following weeks, could save Mangini’s job in some circles. If Mangini can break down the wall of invincibility the Steelers have built against the Browns, that win would change everything.

Mangini stressed throughout the year that the team needed to show progress. When the team regressed, he was rightly roasted on a spit for it. Should Mangini beat the Steelers, then he will deserve the subsequent praise. I'm not arguing that.

However, before anyone jumps on the “keep Mangini” bandwagon, there are a few things that need to be considered. I hesitated jumping on the “fire Mangini” bandwagon until after the Lions game, but now that I’m on it, I’m not jumping off so quickly.

I tried to reason myself onto the “fire Mangini” bandwagon, therefore I won’t just arbitrarily jump off of it.

First of all, Mangini most likely botched the draft this year. In my mind, he clearly got swindled in his trade-downs in the first round. There were too many other impact players on defense in the first round to draft Alex Mack in that position.

That’s not a knock on Alex Mack, it’s an opinion that you take the best player available in your draft slot, and Mack was not that guy at that slot. If anyone wants to disagree with me, that’s fine. I won’t argue with you, it’s strictly my opinion.

Mangini also over-drafted Brian Robiskie, and left another impact defensive player on the table for the Bengals to take, Rey Maualuga.  Maualuga has had a pretty decent rookie season and, so far, has proven the “red flags” concerning alleged anger and drinking issues that kept Mangini from drafting him were bogus.

Then there’s David Veikune, a second round draft pick who has become Mangini’s pet project. The problem with that is you don’t draft projects in the second round. You draft minor projects in the third round, and wait until the fourth round, or later, to draft major projects like Veikune.

On the field, Mangini has still yet to answer for completely botching the quarterback situation. An unnecessarily long, and self-destructive, quarterback competition resulted in Brady Quinn playing scared for the first three weeks before being benched.

Then Derek Anderson took the field, and showed the world again why Browns fans are sick and tired of the drama.

Now that Quinn is back in, and playing much more loosely, he’s starting to look like the quarterback we all thought he could be. Time will tell if his performance against the Chargers was an aberration, or a sign of things to come.

However, this brings me to the linchpin of my argument on why Mangini must go: offensive coordinator Brian Daboll.

In brief, Daboll has a job he neither earned nor deserved. Take a moment and look at Daboll's resume on Clevelandbrowns.com.  

I'll wait.

As anyone can see by his two whole years as a quarterbacks coach for the Jets under Mangini, he has about as much qualification to be an offensive coordinator in the NFL as I do. In other words, no qualifications at all.

His two years as wide receivers coach for New England is nice, but once again, what was he really doing?

Every position before that probably involved getting coffee and donuts, so his resume is pretty thin.

His first year as quarterback coach resulted in Chad Pennington being benched. Last year, Brett Favre was his quarterback, and I'm sure Favre hung on Daboll's every word. But Daboll won't challenge Mangini, and that's apparently all the qualifications he needed for the job.

Mangini stuck with him after the bye week when most competent coaches, the kinds who are willing to admit they made a mistake, would’ve pulled the plug on the poor guy.

Mangini is doing Daboll no favors because there’s nothing in Daboll’s methodology to suggest he’s going to get any better, and Quinn seems to do his best work changing plays at the line.

In fact, it seems when Quinn obeyed every single order coming from Daboll is when Quinn was at his worst.

The Chargers game proved, again, Daboll is in over his head when it comes to play calling, especially in the red zone. The fact this team can’t score a rushing touchdown is a direct indictment of the offensive scheme and the coaching staff, not the quarterback.

But back to my original thought: If Mangini can win in Pittsburgh, the fans will forgive him, and that’s fine. But fans are fickle, and tomorrow is a new day.

That being said, Mangini should remember the lessons of the Chargers game: Give Browns fans a taste of success and they’ll love you for it. Give them an ounce of real success, and they’ll elevate you to a position of God-like proportions.

Marty Schottenheimer and Bernie Kosar are revered in Cleveland. How many Super Bowls did they win here?

At this point, beating the Steelers may feel like winning the Super Bowl, so I hope Mangini is paying attention.