Cleveland Browns: Could Mike Holmgren Be Bringing on His Dream Team? (Part 3)

With the Cleveland Browns playing for the 2011 NFL season with three games left in the 2010 season, one man stands to lose the most if the Browns cannot win one or two of their remaining games against their AFC North division rivals.

That man is Eric Mangini.

Mangini has faced all odds in his two seasons in Cleveland and had faced more pressure than any head coach of the team since the rebirth of the franchise in 1999.

Starting off the 2009 season, which was one of the most historical starts to any season for any NFL team with an offense that could not function and was even outscored by the New Orleans Saints defense at the midpoint of the season, Mangini was instantly criticized by all analysts, fans and whoever had a voice to put the coach into the line of fire.

To defend Mangini, he has faced all these odds with a roster that was devoid of talent and needed a stronger front office than the one that was brought in with Mangini in 2009.

Enter president Mike Holmgren and general manager Tom Heckert in 2010, who have been able to help bring talent to the Browns' roster for this season. To give Mangini credit where credit it is due, the Browns have been consistently competitive more in 2010 than in the last few seasons.

In what is Part 3 of a three-part series on what might happen if Holmgren decides to change the Browns' coaching staff after the 2010 season, here is a look at the head coach position. Click here for Part 1, which looks at the offensive coordinator position and click here for Part 2, which looks at the defensive coordinator position.

If Holmgren wants to bring his coaches to the Browns in 2011, then he will be looking at a very strong group of candidates from his coaching tree that has seen many of his assistants gain experience as a head coach in the past.

This list includes Ray Rhodes, Jim Zorn and close friend John Fox, to name a few, but no other name stands out for the head coaching spot more so than that of Jon Gruden.

A Browns fan while growing up in Sandusky, OH, which is approximately 45 minutes west of Cleveland, Gruden is currently part of ESPN's Monday Night Football team, and he has one more season left on his contract.

This means that Gruden would be free to coach in 2012, and with Mangini still having one year left on his current contract, this could be an option that Holmgren is looking at. Despite being signed with ESPN from another year, do not doubt that there is still an exit clause in Gruden's contract which would allow him to terminate his contract early if another head coaching opportunity presented itself.

Again this is all speculation, but even Gruden's own son named the Browns as one of two destinations he sees his father going to work at as the coach.

A former Super Bowl winning head coach with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2002, Gruden worked under Holmgren as an offensive assistant and wide receivers coach before being named the offensive coordinator of the Philadelphia Eagles in 1995 when another former Holmgren assistant, Ray Rhodes, was named the head coach of the Eagles.

Then in 1998, Gruden was named the head coach of the Oakland Raiders and in four years, he built that team into what would a Super Bowl team that he would ironically face in his first year as the Buccaneeers coach in 2002.

Many critics have not given Gruden credit for his Super Bowl appearance, saying that he took over a team that Tony Dungy built up. This might have some truth to it, but then you have to consider the fact that in the 2002 Super Bowl, Gruden was also facing his former team that he built into a championship caliber team too.

With the past aside, Gruden is a name that is and has been in the mix in Cleveland since Holmgren came on board, but all this speculation is really based on the pure fact that everything is in the hands of Mangini and what he can do in the final few weeks of the 2010 season.

Do not doubt that this change cannot happen, especially with how much Gruden has told the media he loves quarterback Colt McCoy, and Gruden has a soft spot for quarterbacks as he has shown in the past as the coach in both Oakland and in Tampa Bay.

Could this really happen?

Anything is possible in the NFL.

(Also posted on Dawg Scooper: A Cleveland Browns Source)