“ManJackass”

Stanley Fritz

He burst onto the scene as the bright new young head coach for the New York Jets, with a team core that was already set for him, he managed to bring the Jets to the Playoffs with a 10-6 record, the following year with almost the same team he lost confidence in Chad Pennington, benched him for career back up Kellen Clemens, and the Jets went 4-12.  The following year Mangini was given one of the best quarterbacks to ever play, and after starting 8-3 the team absolutely fell apart, finishing the season 9-7.

After three years with the Jets, it was clear that Mangini was not the right fit for the team that was there, and after two straight disappointing seasons they got rid of him. When he left the Jets there were a couple of things that players were happy to be rid of.

• Someone Sucking the Fun out of the sport that they loved so much
• Excessive and over bearing Rules
• No clear definition of Identity
• No consistency in Identity
• No respect or understanding for the offensive side of the ball
• Too Conservative

So now Mangini is with the Browns, and the first thing he does, besides giving a big speech about how he will change things, is trade their star tight end Kellen Winslow, then he gives up their draft pick to the Jets for a couple of players and a second round pick, the Jets use that pick to get their franchise quarterback Mark Sanchez.  Mangini added chaos to the Browns by refusing to announce a starting quarterback until the very last minute, and even when everybody knew who the starter was, he continued to deny it.

There comes a point when you go from being strategic to just plain stupid, and Mangini passed that plateau a long time ago, making a quarterback controversy when there wasn’t a need for it, practicing a style of coaching that might as well be called bullying, and creating a level of paranoia in the locker room has done nothing good for the Browns and instead of seeing a team with decent talent playing through the season, the Browns are 0-4 frustrated beaten down, disrespected and not sure who to look towards for leadership. With saying all of that, I cant help but ask, what happened to the Mangenius that seemed to have all of the answers just a couple of years ago.

The answer is very simple if you really want to know. Mangini for all of his success that one year with the Jets, just isnt a good coach. He has no vision for what he wants to do, doesn’t understand players, and takes tries to hard to be something that he is not, Bill Bellichick. Unfortunately for the Browns that you are not, instead they are stuck with Manjackass.