Mike Holmgren and Eric Mangini: The Duel in Cleveland Begins

Christmas is a time for family, fellowship, and good will toward mankind.

It also is time for NFL coaches and their assistants to start losing their jobs.

The silver lining on some of these holiday firings are guaranteed contracts that allow the unfortunate coaches to sit at home and collect a paycheck for an additional few years. In most cases, that’s plenty of time to hook on somewhere else.

In the coming days, new Browns head of football operations Mike Holmgren will be sitting down with head coach Eric Mangini. Given what happened to former general manager George Kokinis, it’s not that big of a reach to say Mangini also could find himself looking for an attorney in the New Year.

Firing anyone in the NFL “for cause” and refusing to pay the remainder of their contract is a big deal. Raiders owner Al Davis is the only owner who does it with regularity, and the quality of coaches he’s now able to attract has diminished significantly, which is why most teams rarely do it.

The Browns did it to Kokinis after the Bears game this year, and the subsequent lawsuit speaks volumes. On one hand, you have Kokinis alleging he was lied to and marginalized from day one by Mangini. On the other hand, Kokinis didn't do his job.

According to the minuscule amounts of information that have leaked from the team’s sources, Kokinis didn’t really try all that hard to fight for his job, instead just retreating to his office.

Bear in mind Kokinis actually was fired for not doing his job, and according to his own lawsuit, he’s not arguing that point.

Since the fact Kokinis was promised certain powers that Mangini ended up performing no longer is an arguable point, this leaves Holmgren with an interesting scenario: How much can Holmgren trust Mangini?

When Holmgren sits down with Mangini, my gut tells me Mangini will be evaluated on two different criteria.

The first test will be the trust factor. Holmgren will discuss the events of the past year regarding Kokinis with Mangini and evaluate whether Kokinis gave up too easy, or if Mangini so thoroughly dominated the situation, that Kokinis had no recourse other than to wait the situation out.

In other words, Holmgren will have to expose Mangini to “double jeopardy” regarding the Kokinis situation. Legally speaking, did Kokinis get bullied out of his job due to a hostile work environment?

It’s probably pretty fair to say at this point Mangini has lost a lot of his power around the front office, so Holmgren probably isn’t worried about a power struggle at this point, but he does have to be completely honest about the situation and determine if Mangini will try and undermine him at some point.

Assuming Mangini passes the trust test, the next test will determine if Mangini can accept all the changes that are going to be made and move forward.

This test, most likely, will come in the form of a statement of change. This statement might sound something like this: “Mr. Mangini, I will be firing offensive coordinator Brian Daboll and your entire staff under him to bring in my own guy and install the West Coast offense. Is this going to be a problem?”

My hunch is Mangini will say whatever he has to say to keep his job. Losing two head-coaching jobs in one calendar year doesn’t bode well for his future in the NFL. Add to this all the enemies he made at the NFL league offices during the Spygate situation, Mangini has to realize he put himself in a corner.

Mangini was fired from New York after the team collapsed late in the season and missed the playoffs, but if you stop to examine things, Brett Favre was injured for the last month of the season and the team still was better than they were in 2007. That means there was more to Mangini’s dismissal in New York than just missing the playoffs.

But the New York media was so thrilled to see Mangini fired, they never really questioned the underlying reasons, and Cleveland has lost another season because of it.

Throwing colleagues under the bus and making enemies in high places has been Mangini’s M.O. since the first day he became a head coach. He held others to draconian levels of accountability while never taking responsibility for any of his own shortcomings.

Mangini made a lot of enemies in New York. He seemed to go out of his way to alienate people once he got to Cleveland, though no one really has figured out why.

That’s a funny way of going about business when you haven’t won anything as a head coach.

Once owner Randy Lerner decided to bring in a “serious, credible” leader, and Mangini realized he wasn’t that guy, the national apology tour started.

In a weird way, because he never seems to do anything in a direct fashion, Lerner finally forced Mangini to be accountable over the last month and the team is better for it.

If Holmgren decides to give Mangini one more year, which is possible due to economic factors and Jon Gruden’s contract situation with ESPN and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, that’s fine. The Browns would have to buy out both contracts at this point.

I bring up Gruden’s name because he’s the most likely candidate for Holmgren. See my column here.

If Holmgren decides to fire Mangini, there’s no point in getting upset. Mangini dug his own grave and would have no one to blame but himself. If the firing is “for cause,” once again, Mangini would have no one to blame but himself.

The Raiders and former Browns quarterback Charlie Frye are coming to town Sunday and Derek Anderson is starting. Merry Christmas everybody!