Cleveland Browns Victory Over PIttsburgh Steelers Is Cause for Hope

With a victory over the Steelers, head coach Eric Mangini now can point to something in his “process” that went right.

Mangini, under fire by the media and the fans almost since day one, now seems to have entered a “sort of” honeymoon period with both entities by embarrassing Cleveland’s traditional rival on national television.

With three weeks left, it’s important to look at what has changed between the beginning of the season and now. Mangini will be kept or fired based on his entire body of work. However, since the team is showing improvement, that brings hope to Mangini's future as well as the fans'.

Prior to the season starting, Mangini’s offseason roster moves brought in a lot of new faces. At least, they were new to Cleveland, since most of them were ex-Jets. There’s nothing inherently wrong with bringing in guys you know, but it seems Mangini got so focused on getting people he knew, he stopped analyzing whether they were actually any good or not.

Hank Poteat is the poster child of former New York Jets players who Mangini brought in to add depth only to see them perform even worse than the guys they replaced. The list is longer than any coach should be comfortable with.

As for his draft, I’ve talked about this here previously. If you’re drafting a major project who isn’t playing every week—like David Veikune in the second round—and leaving major impact defensive talent on the table—like Clay Matthews in the first round—you need to not be in charge of next year’s draft.

Throughout the preseason and regular season, most of Mangini’s non-answers to the press involved invoking “the process” of the team transitioning from a beaten-down collection of misfits to a coherent group of winners.

The hole Mangini dug for himself, though, was that his process only seemed to produce an even bigger collection of ragtag misfits who were even less capable of winning a game than the 2008 team.

The first indication Mangini’s process wasn’t working came in Week Three when Brady Quinn was benched after 10 quarters. The team came out in the second half of that game and just flat out quit on Mangini.

The second warning sign was the bye week after the umpteenth lopsided loss to the Chicago Bears when general manager George Kokinis was thrown under the bus for the team’s shortcomings. This despite every indication that all the front office moves had been orchestrated by Mangini.

Then, the Browns played Detroit and couldn’t hold their first big lead in about two years before completely falling apart in the final two minutes of the game, followed by another embarrassing defeat at the hands of the Bengals.

On a side note, though, the Cleveland media took that second half failure in Week Three and ran with it for the next two months even though Mangini started cutting the quitters almost immediately.

Look at the roster now compared to Week Three. There are a lot of new faces on this squad, and not all the changes came from injuries.

Part of “the process” is weeding out bad apples, and Mangini, though it took time, seems to have finally changed the culture in the Browns locker room. The results were a great performance in a losing effort against the Chargers and a victory over the defending super bowl champions that effectively knocked them out of the playoffs.

Mangini has done a better job of signing guys off of practice squads than he did finding them through free agency. Whether that’s just the way the dice rolled, or the signs of a flawed process, is something no one outside the halls of the Berea, Ohio, complex can answer.

The question now is where do the Browns, and Mangini, go from here? A new football czar may want to bring in his own coach, no matter what. Change, at this point, may be inevitable.

The Steelers game definitely muddied the waters for Mangini’s future. To be completely honest, I’m still not quite ready to jump off the “Fire Mangini” bandwagon just yet. It took me 11 weeks to get on that particular platform, and it’ll take more than one good win to get me to relinquish my seat.

That being said, I’m open to keeping Mangini next season as long as his role in the organization is significantly reduced.

If he just focuses on coaching the team, I think he can be successful. He should have no say in front office matters, and he needs a voice of reason in the draft room next year—especially with 11 picks. If there had been somebody with authority this past spring, the Veikune pick is overruled.

In the here and now, it's become apparent with Jamal Lewis and Braylon Edwards gone, the locker room seems to be a much more open place more conducive to producing a winning team. For that, Mangini is to be congratulated.

However, the fact it took an injury to Lewis to get him out of that locker room is a black mark against Mangini. Lewis should have been cut five minutes after his retirement announcement following the game against the Bears. Since Mangini has been performing GM duties this season, that failure to act is on him.

Looking ahead, I don’t worry about draft position during the season. Our pick is what it is at the end of the season. With that mindset, and my belief that Mangini deserves a full season, let’s see how the next three weeks play out before any of us truly decide whether or not to keep our seats on the “Fire Mangini” bandwagon.

One more point on the Steelers game: How many stars can you see above Cleveland Browns Stadium? Ask Big Ben, he spent most of Thursday night on his back counting them.