If Browns President Mike Holmgren Wants To He Can Fire Eric Mangini "With Cause"

The Cleveland Browns' newest holiday gift, new President Mike Holmgren, has many big decisions in the coming months in order to get the team on the path of becoming a contender once more in the NFL.

His many decisions include: getting Josh Cribbs a new deal, figuring out who the quarterback is, establishing a front office staff and scout team, and analyzing the current coaching staff—to name a few.

Currently, Holmgren is standing by his statement that since he was a coach too, he understands the challenges faced and also said any coach needs more than one year to effectively implement his system.

Remember, when Bill Parcells was hired in Miami, he had a similar scenario and he fired former Dolphins coach Cam Cameron after only one year as the head coach.

The problem in Cleveland is that Browns owner Randy Lerner is already playing too many former employees that were fired before their contracts were up (Phil Savage, Romeo Crennel, etc.).

A theory is that Holmgren needs to sit down and talk to former general manager George Kokinis, who has just filed a claim against the Browns who fired him in the middle of this season.

Kokinis was fired "with cause," but in the reality of the situation he will win his claim unless Lerner and Holmgren sit down with him and negotiate a settlement.

A settlement is the most likely outcome in these types of cases, but more interesting would be if Holmgren talked to Kokinis to try and find "cause" to fire Mangini so that the Browns would not have to pay yet another former employee.

The language in Kokinis' contract clearly stated that he would have final say on the personnel matters, but from all the reports, it appears that Mangini took complete control over the roster and all personnel decisions by disregarding Kokinis' power and taking control himself.

Mangini overpowering Kokinis' control of all personnel matters is a violation of Mangini's own contract since there is no language regarding final say on personnel matters. As long as a settlement can be reached with Kokinis, then "cause" can be found against Mangini.

Whether or not Holmgren really wants to keep Mangini remains to be seen, but if he wants to get rid of Mangini, then he may just have enough ammo to find "cause" for firing him so that he will not have to get paid the remainder of his contract.

(Please note: That this is not a plee for Holmgren to fire Mangini, just an investigation that was done by this journalist to see if "cause" could be found if a firing was to occur.)