Less mental errors, less penalties and a team who shows up ready to play 16 times this fall. I think that would be a huge improvement over the last few years, regardless of who plays QB.

@mark-o said:

I just don't see his teams coming out flat and unprepared from what I've watched from a distance this preseason.

It's unusual but I didn't think that the team that came out against Green Bay in the first preseason game looked like a "Mangini Team". Lots of mental errors. During his three years in NY, the Jets were the least penalized team over that span.

His system works....it's just that he isn't Belichick so people find his methods annoying. They're already starting in on Josh McDaniels with the injury reporting.

@vegasdogg said:

That's what I meant. It would make 2009 tolerable and also make me believe that 2010 is going to be a huge year for us when Mangini and staff have had another off season to build things.

@earl34 said:

As an example: Last year, the Jets played the Dolphins in the final game and it was pretty clear in the second half that the playoffs were unreachable. They didn't play their best game but in my mind (and there are some who disagree with me) I felt like the guys left it out on the field. I don't think that the players quit on Mangini. I think they played hard til the end. Now, they had no way to know that he was getting fired. It was generally a shock to the players, I believe.

I think that Mangini has made mistakes with his handling of things in NY and hopefully he makes fewer mistakes in Cleveland. I think that it's troubling though for someone who's watched him compete successfully against the best coaches is to see him roasted by the NY media and (in some cases) nationally. Yes, he brings some of it on himself BUT I would offer to you that last year his team was 8-3 after 11 games and had just come off of a prime time Thursday night victory in Foxboro and followed that up with a WAXING of an undefeated Titans team in Nashville.

I don't believe he gets enough credit for the things he does well. Yes, he's a meticulous game-planner. Yes, he sometimes even micromanages but I would tell you to watch those two games I mentoned. What you'll notice is:

In both games at several junctures he made both Belichick and Fisher do things that they didn't want to do. He forced them into time outs. He baited them into challenges. He manages the clock well. He out-coached them. I have always felt that a good coach wins 3-5 critical plays for his team and Mangini has the ability to do that.

Will he get credit for this kind of game day coaching? Not if his team comes out flat. Wins are the best deodorant and I hope that the Browns are smelling pretty good by season's end.

That makes me hopeful. I'm sure he made some mistakes in NY....and hopefully like Belickhick in Cleveland the first time, he learns from his mistakes and continues to do the other things that he does well.

I just don't see his teams coming out flat and unprepared from what I've watched from a distance this preseason.

@mark-o said:

For 2009 yes, that would make me look forward to Sunday.

@mark-o said:

Mark, I won't disagree with this but sometimes it happens and it boggles my mind too. It just happens...especially when teams travel from one coast to the other. In my mind, the bigger issue is how hard will the guys play once they've come out flat.

As an example: Last year, the Jets played the Dolphins in the final game and it was pretty clear in the second half that the playoffs were unreachable. They didn't play their best game but in my mind (and there are some who disagree with me) I felt like the guys left it out on the field. I don't think that the players quit on Mangini. I think they played hard til the end. Now, they had no way to know that he was getting fired. It was generally a shock to the players, I believe.

I think that Mangini has made mistakes with his handling of things in NY and hopefully he makes fewer mistakes in Cleveland. I think that it's troubling though for someone who's watched him compete successfully against the best coaches is to see him roasted by the NY media and (in some cases) nationally. Yes, he brings some of it on himself BUT I would offer to you that last year his team was 8-3 after 11 games and had just come off of a prime time Thursday night victory in Foxboro and followed that up with a WAXING of an undefeated Titans team in Nashville.

I don't believe he gets enough credit for the things he does well. Yes, he's a meticulous game-planner. Yes, he sometimes even micromanages but I would tell you to watch those two games I mentoned. What you'll notice is:

In both games at several junctures he made both Belichick and Fisher do things that they didn't want to do. He forced them into time outs. He baited them into challenges. He manages the clock well. He out-coached them. I have always felt that a good coach wins 3-5 critical plays for his team and Mangini has the ability to do that.

Will he get credit for this kind of game day coaching? Not if his team comes out flat. Wins are the best deodorant and I hope that the Browns are smelling pretty good by season's end.

If that is the only improvement I see this year is that we show up ready to play every Sunday and make sure that every team we play knows that we were on the field and we fight like hell every week, I'm going to be positive looking towards next season.

@riffer-x said:

Hey, maybe this team needs guys like him, and the fact Mangie loves the guy has to mean something. However, I am wary of more issues involving Cox and his emotions. Leonard seems to be a cool guy, but we don't know what really happened.

The Smith incident doesn't count, he is a nutjob.

Riffer,....I was never a Brian Cox fan when he was a player but he's one of those guys who gets instant respect most of the time. I thought he couldn't possibly coach well until I saw it up close and personal. I will tell you that when you hear his stories about growing up, you'll kiss your kids at night thankful they never have to deal with what he did. Why is that relevant? Because I've seen him connect with guy after guy. He's a hard assed coach to be sure but he won't accept less than maximal effort and I will let you in a little secret: This team has a bunch of lazy holdovers. One by one....they're being weeded out.

Take it for what it's worth. Just my .02

@riffer-x said:

I thought this was funny:

CBS Rapid Reports said:

3:10:49 pm A mild altercation spiced things up today when backup DE Brian Schaeferling hit QB Richard Bartel, prompting OL Hank Fraley to rush in and push Schaeferling. Browns DL coach Bryan Cox then screamed at Schaeferling to not let himself be pushed around.

@ballpeen said:

I think you can also put something like agility and athleticism into that category. For instance, the agility and athleticism of Michael Vick. You're either born with it, or you're not.

@ballpeen said:

You can't coach talent?? I don't understand that comment.

I can coach you to be more intense, I can expect it as a coach and I can coach you to expect it in yourself. I can get a players motor running high. I do it with my teammates and I do it with the kids I've coached. I can't coach a player to have natural ability or talent.

@hiwaygal said:

Nicely done!

@ballpeen said:

I think he means you can't teach/coach a player to have talent. You either have talent or you don't. You can certainly teach/coach a player to be able to play above his natural talent.

@vegasdogg said:

I am thinking it is the other way around. Intensity and heart are pretty much the same thing...either you have it or you don't.

You can't coach talent?? I don't understand that comment.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/art...08579/index.htm

August 19, 1996

A Real Bear

Outspoken Bryan Cox has made himself right at home as the new leader in Chicago

Peter King

A little past seven last Friday morning, the NFL's most misunderstood player sat in the cafeteria of the Chicago Bears' training-camp complex in Platteville, Wis., looking nothing like the quarterback terrorist his new coach, Dave Wannstedt, hopes he will be. He looked placid, actually, a man happy with his job and his stature and what he considers his ridiculous wealth. Well, there was one thing bothering him.

"You know," said this complex man, his brow wrinkling on his round face, "I went to Coach Wannstedt the other day, and I asked him, 'Nothing against this camp, but can we get the f—-out of here early?' I've been a month without seeing my wife, six weeks without seeing my kids. Man, I miss seeing my kids when I go home at night. Do you know what that's like?"

Cuddly and forthright and rebellious, all at the same time. That sums up what the Bears got for their $13.2 million when they signed free-agent defender Bryan Cox to a four-year deal in February. Cox made his Soldier Field debut on Sunday in Chicago's 24-21 preseason victory over the Miami Dolphins, his former team, and Bears fans had to be happy with what they saw. The ebullient Wannstedt certainly was. "He's everything we thought he'd be," Wannstedt said. "And more."

Cox made but two tackles in two quarters, but twice he snuffed out drives with impact plays. On fourth-and-one from the Miami 44 late in the first quarter, Cox the middle linebacker stood up lead blocker and fullback Stanley Pritchett, allowing five teammates to stop running back Irving Spikes for no gain. In the second quarter Cox the defensive end—that's where he'll play on most passing downs—was scrumming with Dolphins left tackle Richmond Webb when quarterback Dan Marino fired a bullet toward the left sideline. Cox extended his right arm and deflected the pass into the arms of defensive end Al Fontenot.

"Sure was funny seeing him in that black uniform," Webb said afterward. "We didn't see that competitive rage today, but it'll come."

To be sure. Cox plays with a fire few players have, and the preseason is no time to ignite it. Come October he'll blow a gasket at a referee's call or a misplay by a teammate, and every football fan in every bar and den will think he's seeing a replay of one of the five or six memorable occasions during Cox's five years in Miami, when defensive line coach Joe Greene or even coach Don Shula had to hold Cox back from doing something stupid, like attacking a teammate or an official. Unfortunately, when that happens, Cox's talent as a football player will be overshadowed.

Cox brings it on himself, this out-of-control tag. Three seasons ago in Buffalo he was fined $10,000 by the NFL for making obscene gestures to the crowd at Rich Stadium. That incident is vivid in the minds of many fans, but the two death threats Cox says he received on the eve of the game were never widely reported. He says that the league failed to provide adequate security for him that day, which put him on edge, and that his outburst was a response to vulgar taunting by Bills fans. Ten months later Cox sued the NFL for undisclosed damages for forcing him to play in a racially hostile environment; the sides eventually settled out of court, with the league paying Cox's legal fees.

Leashing his fury, Cox contends, isn't an option, because it would hinder him as a player. Whatever his excesses, he's an important player in a league all too concerned with conformity. Cox isn't afraid to speak his mind. Ask him how he gets mentally prepared for a game, and he says, "I make up things, like the guy I'm playing against has just done something evil to my wife or my kids or my mom. If somebody has just kidnapped your kids, what are you going to do? You're going to try to kill his ass." Ask him if he's crazy, and he says, "That's what people don't understand. You know you're crazy for playing this game anyway. If I lose that edge, I can't compete. This is a violent game." Ask him about the responsibility of black players outside football, and he says, "Black players in this league are suckers. They don't know how to be accountable and stand up and be a man about nothing. The one thing that this league can use to keep black athletes, especially, in check is to talk about fining them. 'Oh, I ain't losing no money,' they say. If I believe in something, you can take my whole paycheck, because I'm going to fight you tooth and nail."

He says he is embarrassed when he sees his outbursts on TV. He says there is "no damn way" he's worth the $3.3 million a year he's earning, which ranks him among the highest-paid defensive players in the league.

If salaries were measured solely on statistics, he wouldn't be. He doesn't figure to be among the league leaders in sacks; the Bears would be happy if he finished with 10 or 11, which would be a healthy increase over the 7.5 he had with the Dolphins last year. And he will get pushed around occasionally because, at 250 pounds, he's no match for Nate Newton-sized offensive linemen. But in comparative terms he's a bargain. When guys without pedigrees, guys like Marco Coleman of the San Diego Chargers and Alonzo Spellman of the Bears, are making $3 million or more a year, then what is Cox, a three-time Pro Bowl player at 28, worth?

Wannstedt saw Cox as a leader, and that was a big reason he was on the phone to him at 7 a.m. on Feb. 16, the first day of the free-agent signing period. Wannstedt phoned Cox three times that day and placed another 15 calls to Cox's agent, Clifford Brady. The Chargers, the Denver Broncos, the Green Bay Packers and the St. Louis Rams were also interested, but Chicago moved quickly to sign its man. The deal was done within five days, before any other team had a chance to make a serious offer. "We've never really had a leader here," offensive coordinator Ron Turner said. "Until now."

The Chicago players liked what they saw of Cox in off-season workouts, but they didn't know much about him. Early in camp even Cox was worried his teammates might think he was overrated. "I had the lowest vertical leap among the linebackers and the slowest time in the 40," he says. "I think guys were starting to look at me funny."

Then two things happened. First Cox ran a series of 110-yard conditioning sprints in nothing but spikes and a jockstrap. "Gave the secretaries a thrill," says quarterback Erik Kramer. It also told his teammates, We can have fun out here while we're killing ourselves. Next Cox showed his teammates he could play. Wannstedt puts his players through what he calls the middle drill, in which the offensive line faces the defensive front seven and a back tries to run up the gut. Helmets crack, grown men brawl, coaches measure toughness. On Cox's first middle drill as a Bear he burst through a gap and leveled former Heisman Trophy winner Rashaan Salaam. Cox got up screaming and helmet-banging. On the third play of the drill third-year fullback Raymont Harris met Cox. The collision sent Harris flying backward and the defense into a celebratory frenzy. "Who? What? Who hit me?" a dazed Harris said later. Says linebacker Vinson Smith, "That did it. If anybody doubted Bryan before that, nobody did anymore."

The Bears need that kind of physical presence; last year only seven teams allowed more points than the 22.5 per game that Chicago gave up. Against Miami on Sunday the Bears jetted to a 19-0 lead and thoroughly frustrated the Dolphins' attempts to establish a running game before Marino rallied his team to within five points at half-time. Miami coach Jimmy Johnson came to Soldier Field determined to run the ball with Spikes, rookies Karim Abdul-Jabbar and Jerris McPhail and Terry Kirby, who was being showcased for a potential late-August trade. In the first half the Dolphins' first-team offense ran the ball 12 times against the Bears' first-team defense and gained but 35 yards. "If we're going to be a good football team—and we are—it's not going to come by us throwing the ball 50 times a game," Johnson said afterward. "We've got to build a running game."

Johnson is tearing down the House That Shula Built. Aside from Marino, who are these guys? Johnson's opening-game lineup will include as many as 15 starters who are different from the players in the 1995 opening-day lineup. This is how wild and crazy the situation in Miami is: Johnson brought in 33-year-old Jack Del Rio to play middle linebacker. He viewed Del Rio as a trusted veteran around whom a bunch of rookies could grow and learn. Del Rio, however, was released after one preseason game and replaced by 5'11", 231-pound Zach Thomas, a fifth-round pick from Texas Tech. Thomas is one of four or five rookies ticketed to start. "I love Jack Del Rio," Johnson said last Saturday, "but Zach's making more plays. Period. And young legs make more plays than old legs in December and January. I keep telling the players I'm going to put the best players out there. Pedigree means nothing to me. What can they do for me now?"

Johnson remains his old wheeling-and-dealing self. Offer him a third-or fourth-rounder in the 1997 draft, and you can have either Kirby—Vinny Cerrato, director of player personnel for the running back-needy 49ers (page 54), was at the game scouting the fourth-year back—or Pete Stoyanovich, the fourth-most accurate kicker in NFL history. Johnson scoffs at the notion that he is making a rash judgment on Stoyanovich, who's on the block because unknown Joe Nedney has shown a strong leg. "In Dallas [place-kicker] Lin Elliott won for us one year," Johnson says. "When he wasn't going good the next year, we fired him and got a guy off the street [Eddie Murray] and won the Super Bowl. Big deal."

After Sunday's game, while not quite blowing a gasket, Cox was going off again. This time his target was 72-year-old Soldier Field. "This is the raggiest, lousiest stadium in the league," he said. "This must be the last stadium left in the league without a damn Jumbotron to see highlights. I wish the politicians in this city would get off their asses and get us a stadium built."

Cox screwed in his $2,000 diamond-stud earrings. As he walked from the locker room in the stadium he hates, he listened to another question: What's the most misunderstood thing about you? He stopped. "Nothing," he replied.

"Nothing?"

"Nothing," Cox said. "Because I don't care what people think, and people outside of my world don't know me. My wife loves me. My kids love me. I do my job the best I can, and I do what I think is right. Isn't that enough?"

@vegasdogg said:

There's coaching intensity, and there's coaching with stupid machismo. If he's Dick Vermeil (trying to think of a non-crazy vocal coach), that's one thing. If he's Tom Cable, that's another.

Dennis

Assuming that Quinn isn't the only guy people would object to being punched.

Mangini knows how to get the most out of his players.

Lets see which veterans fold under pressure.

@ballpeen said:

But he was always the most intense. You can't coach talent but you can coach intensity and how to play full tilt.