Eric Mangini Is The Front Runner For The Cleveland Browns Job? Seriously?

Sorry Cleveland, if the reports are true, your team doesn’t pass the good owner test.

Eric Mangini? Seriously?

The Cleveland Browns are seriously considering hiring Eric Mangini to be their next head coach. According to ESPN’s Chris Mortensen, Cleveland Browns owner Randy Lerner is “fascinated” with Mangini.

Seriously? Did he watch the Jets in December?

How about getting yourself a new GM, then letting the GM hire the coach?

In the same ESPN report, Mortensen said that Scott Pioli was becoming less likely in Cleveland because his demands were extreme.

What type of demands could be considered so extreme that the Browns are forced to back away from their number one candidate? This is a team that hasn’t been good since it reentered the league. Everyone they’ve hired has been a failure.

Everyone.

Maybe this is why.

Eric Mangini wasn’t well liked in New York. He wasn’t well liked by players on his own team. He was consistently out coached. His coaching staff was an abomination. His time management was terrible.

I’m not sure fascinating is the right word.

Mangini was a defensive coordinator for one season before the Jets took their Patriots obsession to another level and hired him to become their new head coach. As a defensive coordinator, he was mediocre. He even had his play calling duties taken away towards the end of the season.

Once he became the Jets’ head coach, he had one good season, a guest appearance on the Sopranos, a terrible season, then one of the worst late season collapses in recent memory. Were it not for JP Losman making the worst play in NFL history, the Jets would have lost their last five games of the season.

And yet Randy Lerner is fascinated with him.

It’s tough to figure out why some teams don’t win. They have a huge fan base. Their owner seems willing to spend money. It’s baffling that they don’t win.

Then their owner becomes fascinated with someone like Eric Mangini, and we all realize exactly why they don’t win.

Sean Crowe covers the New England Patriots for Examiner.com and writes a bi-weekly column for Sports-Central.org.

He is a Senior Writer and an NFL Community Leader at Bleacher Report. You can email him at [e-mail]. His archive can be found here.