Cleveland Browns End Season on a Winning Note, Await Mike Holmgren

Head coach Eric Mangini made the best case he possibly could to keep his job with the team’s fourth straight win over the Jacksonville Jaguars, 23-17.

Mike Holmgren, the Browns new VP of Football Operations, starts his job today and will begin a top-to-bottom makeover of the franchise.

Holmgren will have a lot to think about as Mangini didn’t make any decision about his future any easier with the team’s latest win. The game showcased the Browns newfound interest in a running game as they pounded the ball down the Jaguar’s throat for the win.

In a game where every coaching decision had far-reaching implications for the offseason, it was interesting to see quarterback Derek Anderson used mainly for handing off the ball to Jerome Harrison and Chris Jennings.

Whether those two running backs evolve into the second coming of Kevin Mack and Earnest Byner remain to be seen, but the one drive where Anderson was called upon to throw the ball more in the second quarter resulted in a bunch of badly thrown incompletions and an interception.

The Browns, wisely, chose to emphasize the running game after that. Overall, the Browns ran the ball 49 times versus 11 pass attempts.

No one is really sure what Brady Quinn’s future will be with Holmgren taking over, but Anderson probably has taken his last snap as a Cleveland Brown. His atrocious QB rating coupled with an inability to show even the capacity to learn “touch” on his passes is making his 2007 season look more like a fluke.

On the defensive side of the ball, with the exception of the fourth quarter, Rob Ryan once again had his defense looking much better than their last place ranking would indicate. This defense stopped Maurice Jones-Drew, holding him to just 82 yards rushing.

The Browns, once again this season, handled the cold weather better than their adversary. Like the game against the Steelers, the Browns came out and got the job done while the other team looked like it couldn’t wait to get off the field and go warm up.

With the team’s first four-game winning streak since 1994, and the obvious improvements on both sides of the ball, it’s easy to say Mangini must stay. To be fair, Mangini met my criteria for keeping his job this season, so I’m in his corner.

A win over the hated Pittsburgh Steelers goes a long way in Cleveland. The victory last month earned Mangini a lot of fans and took a lot of pressure off. The subsequent victories only have solidified the work Mangini has done in the past year.

It’s important to remember even though the team is 5-11, it finished strong. Keeping the same record, if the team had won the first four games and then went 1-11, nobody would be talking about keeping Mangini at this point.

However, the fixes were made and the situation is what it is. Holmgren stated in his press conference last week he wants to get the best guys in place as quickly as possible, and not doing that in Seattle is what hurt him.

The fact Holmgren didn’t show up to watch how Mangini does things is a bad sign for Mangini’s future, but Holmgren will give Mangini a chance, I believe.

I would be remiss not to bring up culprit number one in the failure of the 2009 Cleveland Browns, owner Randy Lerner. Absent these many weeks, his mistakes begat Mangini’s mistakes, and it’s Mangini who ultimately may end up paying the price for Lerner’s failures as an owner.

It’s not fair, but that’s life.

Mangini has had a lot less front office work to perform over the last month, and this may just be proof that if Mangini can just focus on coaching the team instead of trying to run every aspect of it, he can be successful.

If Holmgren agrees with this assessment, and believes he can trust Mangini to do what he’s told without question or attempts at subterfuge, Mangini will return.

If Holmgren already has decided it’s time to move on, then that’s fine as well. Even though I believe Mangini has earned another season as head coach, he made far too many mistakes this past year to have earned any sympathy.

Mangini can talk about “the process” all he wants. The 1-11 record going into Week 14 spoke for itself, and the lack of anyone else making decisions in the front office meant Mangini got exactly what he wanted–responsibility for everything, good and bad.

The good definitely has been the roster makeover, especially in the latter half of the season. The ejection of malcontents along with the addition of some quality waiver wire pickups has raised the talent level of this team and put them in a good position heading into the offseason.

Mangini also instilled a lot of much-needed discipline, reducing the number of careless penalties significantly. This in turn helped the team win games down the stretch.

The bad aspects of the last year under Mangini start with the unnecessary drama. Mangini made a lot of enemies at the league level with Spygate. As a result, Mangini always was under more scrutiny than other coaches and the team suffered for it.

Mangini also made some very questionable decisions, such as the 10-hour bus ride to Hartford. Along with the increased scrutiny, it almost seemed like he was begging to get his wrist slapped.

Then there was the quarterback competition. I said at the time Mangini was trying so hard to fool other teams he probably only was going to end up fooling himself.

I wasn’t wrong.

Mangini’s front office moves are a whole other novel, and one I’m sure will be a best-seller as an exercise in how NOT to rebuild an NFL organization. In brief, he pretty much wrote his own ticket out of town should Holmgren fire him.

But this does bring us back to Lerner, who jumped on Mangini without performing due diligence, who hired a coach before hiring a front office and gave the keys to the kingdom to someone not ready for it.

Lerner has been persona non grata since hiring Holmgren. Whether or not this will be a good thing will be determined in the coming year.

Let’s hope Lerner got it right this time.