Cleveland Browns: A New Season Has Already Begun!

The Super Bowl is over, the Pro Bowl is a week away, and I'm already looking forward to preseason.

I don't want to call this season with the Browns a failure, but it sure did fall short of expectations. Going 4-12 was by no means the Super Bowl prediction that some people made about the Browns only a few short month ago.

I watched this season on the edge of my couch virtually every game with the hope we could pull out a win. Lots of beer and chips and screaming; later, the Steelers win the Super Bowl...I have no desire to listen to Steelers fans boast about how great they are.

But you certainly can't take anything away from them; the Steelers did a great job.

OK, that was mostly venting, on to the puddin'! Recently the Cleveland Browns have hired Eric Mangini, George Kokinis, and a slew of assistants to lead the Browns into the new era of Cleveland. This is my take on the new hires.

Eric Mangini: at first thought all I could think of was, "hurray, another failed coach from Bill Belichick." He was hired at nearly the same time Romeo Crennel was fired. Not to mention Charlie Weis hasn't really turned out to be anything spectacular either.

But in looking back on what he has really done, you see that he brought a struggling franchise back to competing. As a Browns' fan that would mean a lot to me.

George Kokinis: Who is this guy? Honestly, until I heard the Browns declared him as the new GM, I had never heard of him. When taking a look at his work nothing really stands out and personally I think that is what I like about him. NOTHING STANDS OUT; no real bad decision! I respect that. 

Maybe the most promising thing about Kokinis is that he has been doing some form of scouting for about 15 years. The guy couldn't have come this far by being a good judge of personnel. Two picks I did like that he had something to do with was running back Willis McGahee and quarterback Joe Flacco; I hear those guys are pretty good.

As for the new assistant coaches I see nothing but clean talent at their respective levels. Maybe I'll go into detail the next time around.

This is what I got to say though: ANYTHING LESS THAN A WINNING SEASON WITH SO MUCH TALENT WILL DEFINE THIS NEW ERA!