Keeping Mangini first step in Holmgren's Browns turnaround
Hooray for Mike Holmgren and the Cleveland Browns.
The team's new president got it right when he told Eric Mangini he wanted him back as head coach. Mangini earned the opportunity to prove he's the right man for this job, and Holmgren has given it to him.
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I don't care if the two aren't a perfect fit, as some people contend. I don't care if Holmgren was hired with the understanding that he had to keep Mangini at least one season, as one GM told me two weeks ago. What I do care about is that a head coach who deserves to stay will and that continuity is given a chance.
Go ahead and snicker. A lot of people did when Mangini -- at midseason -- promised to get results, saying that all he needed was time to get his message through. So he had eight games, and the Browns went 4-4 -- winning their last four, the franchise's longest winning streak since 1994.
His critics yawned and said, "Big deal," complaining that Cleveland didn't beat anyone of consequence. I'm sorry, but a win is a win is a win, and the Browns produced more victories the second half of the season than the defending Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers.
I mention Pittsburgh because Mangini's defeat of the Steelers marked the first time Cleveland prevailed since 2003, and if you don't think that was significant you weren't listening to Steelers' linebacker LaMarr Woodley. When he complained about others not wanting the Steelers in the playoffs he missed the point. If Pittsburgh had just beaten Cleveland -- heck, if it had beaten Kansas City or Oakland -- it would have been there.
So, yeah, beating Pittsburgh was a big deal.
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| Eric Mangini is getting another chance thanks to the Browns' 4-0 finish. (Getty Images) |
As it turns out it took the last four games.
Now Eric Mangini is working on a five-game tear, and good for him, the Browns and Mike Holmgren. It made no sense to ignore what happened down the stretch and start all over, guaranteeing another year of disruption, losing and angry fans. The Browns showed us something the last month that hadn't been seen in Cleveland for a couple of seasons, and that was a pulse.
When they finished by beating Jacksonville in the season finale, players didn't beat a retreat to the locker room. They doused Mangini with Gatorade, the surest signal that they appreciated what he had done for and with them.
It was a marked departure from the middle of the season when Mangini absorbed body blows from writers, broadcasters and even a few of his own players. Throughout he maintained his poise, referring critics to what happened when he was with Bill Belichick in his first season with the New England Patriots and imploring them not to give up on him or the team.
Those Patriots finished with the same record (5-11) as Cleveland this season, and they did it after finishing 8-8 the year before. Yet they kept Belichick on the job, and I think you know what happened.
That's not to say it happens here. It's to say it could. But Mangini first had to be given a chance to stay. Holmgren just delivered, and it's proof that maybe, just maybe, he can become as good an executive as he was a head coach.
Holmgren knows how difficult it can be to turn around a program in one season and he knows the value of continuity. Look at the Philadelphia Eagles. They were 5-11 in Andy Reid's first season. The next year they were in the playoffs, and they've been to the conference championship game five of the past eight seasons.
The Eagles didn't think about canning Reid after one season, just as New England didn't contemplate jettisoning Belichick, because they know what Holmgren knows: Winning doesn't happen overnight, especially when you inherit a bottom feeder.
Mangini did the improbable when he took the 2006 New York Jets to the playoffs after a 4-12 finish the year before. He produced two winning years in three seasons with the Jets, as well as one playoff appearance, but it wasn't good enough for Gang Green because he lost down the stretch last season. So he was canned. He won down the stretch this year, and he will return.
He should.
"He came in here and turned things around," said Josh Cribbs, the Browns' best player.
That's good enough for me. It was good enough for Mike Holmgren, too, and hallelujah. Patience and common sense prevailed.
