The Holmgren-Mangini Marriage: A Franchise-Altering Decision

No NFL team has been more enigmatic this season than the 5-8 Cleveland Browns. That makes the final three weeks of the 2010 season and pending referendum on second-year head coach Eric Mangini the topic of debate along the shores of Lake Erie.

Most observers felt Team President Mike Holmgren would clean house when he arrived during the off-season, releasing Mangini and his staff. It is no secret that the two men hail from different but equally famous fraternities in the NFL’s brotherhood of coaching.

Holmgren is of the Bill Walsh lineage, and prefers 4-3 defenses and a West Coast offense that relies on short passes and emphasizes quarterback play. Mangini, by contrast, comes from the Bill Parcels-Bill Belichick coaching tree that prefers 3-4 defenses and a strong running game to set up the pass.

From the beginning, the Holmgren-Mangini marriage held the potential for a quick divorce. Yet, a four-game winning streak to close the 2009 season, a series of face-to-face discussions and a phone call to Bill Parcels convinced Holmgren that Mangini deserved a chance to prove himself as coach of the Browns in 2010.

Mangini is in his second NFL head coaching job in Cleveland after being fired in New York following three seasons of coaching the Jets. Cleveland fans need not be reminded that an NFL head coach’s second stint can be the road to redemption.

In 1996, Bill Belichick resigned under pressure from his first head coaching gig in Cleveland after five seasons and a 36-44 overall record. Some three New England Super Bowl victories later, the rest is history.

Fast forward to the present, where Eric Mangini owns a 33-44 record with three games left in his fifth season as a head coach in the NFL. Three wins to close the 2010 season and Mangini would own an identical record to his mentor through five seasons in a coaching career some observers feel is beginning to blossom in Cleveland.

On the other hand, next year will be the second in Mike Holmgren’s five-year deal, and with an extension unlikely, many believe Holmgren won’t let another 20 percent of his tenure expire without selecting a coach from his coaching tree.

This 2010 season, the Cleveland Browns have been hard to count on or count out. The Browns beat the AFC-leading New England Patriots (11-2) as well as the defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints (10-3) in consecutive games.

However, the past three weeks have not been pretty. In Jacksonville, the Browns failed to utilize six turnovers and yielded an 80-yard screen pass in the closing minutes, leading to an agonizing loss.

Two weeks ago, the listless Carolina Panthers (1-12) clanked a potential game-winning field goal off the goal post as time expired. This past Sunday, Cleveland lost, 13-6, to a now 3-10 Buffalo team and managed only 50 second half yards in the process. All of this has Clevelanders wondering “what’s next?” regarding their team and its head coach.

Perhaps wins and losses won’t be the determining factor in the mind of Mike Holmgren. After all, is there really a difference between 6-10 and 7-9? What about progress?

According to nfl.com, the defense is improved across the board from 2009. Out of 32 NFL teams, the pass defense ranks 16th, giving up 223 yards per game in comparison to 244 yards in 2009. The 2010 rush defense is 23rd, allowing 124 yards per game compared to 144 yards last season.

In total yards, the 2010 Browns defense is 22nd at 348 yards per game, compared to 389 yards in 2009. The defensive stats suggest that Browns defensive coordinator Rob Ryan, son of NFL legend and creator of the 4-6 defense Buddy Ryan, is doing a solid job.

Hidden in these statistics is the success of the 2010 draft, in which new general manager Tom Heckert struck pay dirt by drafting starting cornerback Joe Haden and starting safety T.J. Ward in the first two rounds. Both players look like future Pro Bowlers.

Offensively, total yards and passing yards are up while yards rushing are slightly down from 2009. The receivers are young and without high-end talent, but G.M Heckert again struck gold this past off-season by trading now third-string quarterback Brady Quinn to the Denver Broncos for a couple draft picks and now 1,000-yard running back and Cleveland sensation, Peyton Hillis.

But the NFL is a quarterback driven league.  Just look at the teams with the best records in 2010. Tom Brady leads the Patriots, Matt Ryan heads the Falcons, Drew Brees commands the Saints, Michael Vick pilots the Eagles and Ben Roethlisberger quarterbacks the Steelers.

Holmgren took stock of the two-headed quarterback disaster that was Derek Anderson and Brady Quinn and jettisoned both out of town in the offseason. He liked Colt McCoy so much that when the quarterback fell near the bottom of the third round, Holmgren ordered Heckert and Mangini to draft the Texas quarterback with the 85th pick.

The plan was for McCoy to sit out the 2010 season, learning on the side line and in the film room. But this is the NFL and plans change.

After starter and aging veteran Jake Delhomme went down with a high-ankle sprain in the opening games, backup Seneca Wallace quarterbacked the Browns for several weeks before falling victim to his own high-ankle sprain.

Enter Colt McCoy, making his NFL debut against Pittsburgh on the road, New Orleans in the dome and New England at home.

While it seemed a bonfire and sacrifice had been planned for the young quarterback, somebody forgot to tell Colt McCoy, the son of a high school coach, the winningest quarterback in Texas and NCAA history, the modest, intelligent, fierce competitor from tiny Tuscola, Texas, who rose to the occasion, beating both New Orleans and New England with accurate passing, timely runs and good decision making.

McCoy suffered his own high-ankle sprain against the New York Jets in a heart-breaking overtime loss in Cleveland four weeks ago, despite leading the Browns on a game-tying touchdown drive with seconds left in regulation.

Perhaps, the struggles of the past three weeks, especially offensively, can be traced less to the identity of the head coach and more to the identity of the starting quarterback. Despite his boyish looks, it appears Colt McCoy is not only the future but the quarterbacking present for the Cleveland Browns.

That leaves head coach Eric Mangini as the topic of debate in Browns circles. Cleveland talk radio is buzzing with media personalities, fan emails and calls pertaining to the Mangini debate. Everybody wants to weigh in, just in case Mike Holmgren is listening and undecided.

Mangini’s detractors refer to him as “Mangoofy,” while his supporters are known as “Fanginis.” And while some believe Mangini must win two of the final three games and finish at least 7-9 to keep his job, others believe Holmgren’s mind is already made up, but don’t know which way. In the end, only the guy referred to as “The Big Show” knows the fate of Eric Mangini. Well, maybe.

A high school teenager in Florida is complicating matters for Browns fans. Jon Gruden, II, “Deuce” tweeted this past week that his father, former NFL Super Bowl-winning coach and current Monday Night Football analyst Jon Gruden, is interested in a return to coaching.

Gruden played at the University of Dayton, is an Ohio native and grew up a Browns fan. Adding to the intrigue, Gruden comes from the Bill Walsh-Mike Holmgren fraternity of coaches.  According to “Deuce,” who is spilling more family secrets than that Golden Retriever on the Bush Beans commercials, his dad’s next gig will likely be in San Francisco or, you guessed it, Cleveland.

Stay tuned for the final weeks of the 2010 season as the Browns try to get surprising rookie quarterback Colt McCoy healthy and back behind center. The final three games are all in the brutal winter winds of Ohio as they make one last push on the road against Cincinnati, then home for Baltimore and arch-rival Pittsburgh.

Just like the season to this point, it should be a wild finish in Cleveland, and whether you’re betting for or against Jockey Eric Mangini, rest assured he’ll be riding a young colt named “McCoy” down this pivotal stretch of the Browns season and his own head coaching career.