Hiring Holmgren: The Cleveland Browns Need To Get This One Right

As the last few days have played out, it appears more likely Mike Holmgren will be the new football “czar” in Cleveland.

The Washington Redskins already have filled their post after Vinny Cerrato resigned, and Seattle has indicated they’re not interested in bringing Holmgren back.

Also in play here is the “Rooney Rule” mandating the Browns must give a serious interview to a minority candidate.

Define “serious” for me and maybe I’ll take that interview a little more seriously (pun intended).

League rules aside, I have to point out a disturbing similarity with this job interview process and the one that brought Eric Mangini to Cleveland last year. Both searches seemed to focus on one man far too quickly to the exclusion of all others.

This is an observation from a true outsider not privy to the goings-on inside the halls of the Cleveland Browns headquarters. Perhaps they have made other phone interviews with other serious, credible candidates who haven’t made the headlines.

There were rumors of other candidates, such as Bill Parcells, Ernie Accorsi, and a handful of others, but no public declaration like there was this year with Holmgren, or last year with Bill Cowher.

This isn’t to say I’m now against bringing in Holmgren, I’m just trying to be consistent with my criticisms.  

Holmgren was stripped of his GM duties in Seattle following the 2002 season, but this could be looked at as a positive. Holmgren made his mistakes in Seattle and, hopefully, he has learned from them.

The danger with a person like Holmgren is that if he is hired and the season starts to go sideways, he may try and take over head coaching duties. That situation is where I would hope he has learned trying to do too much usually results in more losing.

Whatever happens, if Randy Lerner gets this hire wrong, then he will have nothing but a huge string of failures defining his tenure as the Browns owner. Whether the NFL steps in at that point is debatable, but don’t count on it.

Assuming, for the sake of argument, Holmgren is hired in the next few days, what does that mean for the Cleveland Browns and Mangini?

Many national pundits expect Mangini to be shown the door if Holmgren is hired. This isn’t a narrow branch for the pundits to walk out on. Holmgren has no history with Mangini and the Browns are 2-11 so far this season.

Mangini’s bungling of the quarterback situation, his refusal to admit as mistakes the hiring of Brian Daboll as an offensive coordinator and the apparent over-drafting of Brian Robiskie and David Veikune are all reasons why Lerner is looking for a new GM.

Adding fuel to the fire is the fact Mangini became the de facto GM the minute he was hired, and the lawyers now are trying to figure out exactly what former GM George Kokinis did during his short tenure in Cleveland.

Mangini has a terrible public persona with much of that damage self-inflicted, so I’m not going to feel bad for him should he go. However, the Browns finally have shown progress in the last few weeks.

The big question for everyone, including the new head of football operations, is what will the next three weeks show us?

Kansas City is up next on Sunday. If the Browns look terrible and lose, Mangini probably should just start packing up his office.

If the Browns look good but lose, then we’re one step closer to Ndamukong Suh, and that’s a good thing.