Your strongest point to me was about burning his trump (nice euchre reference, I agree with the rest of the gang) so soon in the hand.

Just like leading with your trump shows you know or care very little about playing with your partner in euchre, burning your "Pro Bowl backup QB" card this early shows you know or care very little about team dynamics and chemistry in football.

Having Quinn obviously suck for 5-8 games would at least buy you the excuse to move to DA, even if more knowledgeable people would have known there were other issues for the sucking.

Doing it this way embarrasses BQ, puts DA in an impossible position and tells everyone on the team "This could be you."

There's hard-nosed disciplinarian and then there's unfeeling tyrant. Mangini, wittingly or no, is closer to the latter.

@jason-j said:

-jj

We learned it right after spades....you know...learn the whole trump thing and to follow suits...but still knew it well by 6...lol

@lambdo said:

I really don't see a problem with it, As a fan or a coach. If you're not executing you have to try someone else.

There are a few problems with it.

1. You just went through a QB controversy during camp. By doing this 3 weeks in, you opened that controversy right back up. From the fans, to the press, and to within your own locker room.

2. If you are actually commiting to Quinn and his development, you have to leave him in there and ask him to what you just asked Anderson to do. Extra time on the bench in the second half of a game is not going to help his development at this point. He's got to get his lumps and opportunities to make mistakes in order to learn from them.

3. Now as HC you have lost credibility with your players. You made a decision then waffle on it two and a half games into the season. People don't tend to follow indecisive people and that is what Mangini has now put the impression of himself as.

@lambdo said:

I really don't see a problem with it, As a fan or a coach. If you're not executing you have to try someone else.

If you don't see a problem with it, you just have absolutely zero football sense. IMO

I really don't see a problem with it, As a fan or a coach. If you're not executing you have to try someone else.

@jason-j said:

-jj

To myself i guess...hehehehe

What im pissed about can be summed up in 2 words..

Bad owner...everything thats wrong points to the owner of this club since 2002 after his fathers demise randys fingerprints are all over the major problems of this club..a troubled locker room ,disrespect for the fans and,the culture and the traditions of browns football ,the consistant bad design that is anti-old skool traditions ,the bad regimes ,the anti-fan secrecy which is quietly passed on to each regime to obey from the top and the bad product that hits the field from all the aforementioned things...

Lerner doesnt have the football knowledge to choose the right people to run this team and he hired mangini over his advisers head he seems to lavish this fanbase coming apart almost as if he wants to take this POS to NY for a 4th team...unfortunately theres little you can do to get an owner to sell unless local polititians the nfl and the media get heavily involved and im sure lerner has them in his pocket...

does it appear to you that the coaching is as big of a mess as it does to the rest of us based on what we've seen so far? You have a more practiced eye for this...

@brownindian said:

Not this year I suspect.

-jj

@gips said:

Isnt the world just a lovely place on sundays when your an old skool diehard browns fan?

Who are you talking to?

-jj

Isnt the world just a lovely place on sundays when your an old skool diehard browns fan?

@jason-j said:

-jj

Always surprised me as well. Seem if you don't live in OH, MICH, or Canada, you don't know the game. When at my dads, you learned it right after you learned to chug a half yard of beer (that was in place of candyland, but was just as good).

Masters said:

Thought you might like that! I'm always amazed at the number of people who don't know that game. In my house you learned it right after Candyland.

-jj

@jason-j said:

-jj

Way to pull the Euchre reference! Man I miss playing that regularly.

Was it pregame? "If Quinn looks unproductive at halftime, I'm switching"?

Was it at halftime?

What's even more stunning is that we were OUT OF THE GAME. To JJ's point, the move had almost a zero probability of changing the game's outcome: His defense had not forced a punt YET. The score was 20-0. Flacco and the Raven's offense was looking Patriot'esque. We were missing our starting RB and starting RG.

Any tried and true veteran fan of the NFL was flat out amazed that he made the switch regardless of which QB you "liked". I mean, to have to go through this twice in three seasons is embarrasing.

Exposes so many bad things about Mangini as a coach and leader.

@hammertime said:

I thought it might be better to let y'all get this one out. You can't stop an injured kid from crying just by telling him to stop crying. I want Browns fans to stay level headed to a point, but sometimes you just have to let it out.

I don't mean to compare you to children. But being a fan is sort of a way to stay a kid. It's about being an adult but still getting to have kid-type fun. And lots of hardcore Browns fans took a flip over the handlebars this weekend. And it stings. I may come off as "emotionless football dictionary" (thanks Solon16 for that one), but I care.

Nobody wants to hear over and over again that their anger is misplaced, and here's why... blah blah blah.

Likewise, I'm not in the business of being Kevin Bacon at the end of Animal House either. "Remain calm. All is Well!!!" All is not well.

Pro football is not played in a bubble. It's a cash business. And the perceived lack of effort is creating friction that is starting to rub raw in places. You can be bad, and still rebuild. But it's hard to be abysmal or embarrassing and still get the job done. People will get on board for "We're going to have some rough patches, but here's the plan." But they really have a problem with "Trust me. I know what I'm doing," when it looks like no one has a clue what's going to happen next. Throw in a couple changes of heart in the middle and you've got problems. The Pied Piper didn't lead by changing tunes... he played the same one over and over and over.

Leadership principles dictate that the leader anticipate, confront, or avoid obstacles to success. Eric Mangini now seems bent on creating new ones. He's stepped headlong into a new quarterback controversy because the pressure of now was stronger than the pressure he could maintain on the future. That is a failure in leadership.

There is no doubt that on September 27th, Derek Anderson is a better quarterback than Brady Quinn. None. But, there's only one game on September 27th 2009 (and they weren't going to win that one anyway). But, how do they rank on November 15th? December 27th? I don't know. I do know that Eric Mangini has painted himself into a corner. His best (and possibly only) move now, might be to ride out the year with Derek Anderson and call the Brady Quinn era a failure. A statement which could very well be true, but may have some lingering doubts among many.

But if he goes back to Quinn, he's going to complicate his mess. Bad enough to change your mind once. But twice? Forget it.

Now, that said, it's quite possible that if the Browns were to have gone the whole season with Quinn at the helm, they would've done little more than reinforce the idea that the they must go back the the quarterback drawing board in 2010. It may very well have happened that way.

But, by making this decision in week 3, he's all but guaranteed it.

Now, if I was in the Browns PR office, I suppose I could spin it. Coach has decided that Brady Quinn is not the future of this franchise, and Derek's experience will give us a better look at the other guys on the offensive roster. So, rather than let Quinn hurt other guys with his growing pains, we're going with the veteran quarterback that will give us more right now.

I get that. I can buy that. The approach has merit. The problem is, it's not what you set out to do. At some point you'll have to say "Starting Brady Quinn was a mistake," "It's not the route we're going from here on out." And I have trouble seeing Mangini do that.

Of course I didn't think he'd make a quarterback switch without at least trying to fake an injury or something. It just didn't seem all that Mangini-esque. Goes to show what I know.

So the question becomes what to do next. If it was my club, given this recent turn of events, I'd try to get Quinn out of the building as soon as possible. His contract is still very affordable, and his trade clause (if I remember correctly) renders him RFA for 2010 if traded - even if it doesn't, he's still affordable - but there's something about the incentives that kicks in, but I don't remember exactly. Somebody's got a 4th round pick out there for a flyer on a former 1st. They could probably go back to Seattle who's demonstrated a need for a quality backup quarterback and a more traditional potential heir to Matthew Hasselbeck.

The Browns could head out into the fall with Derek Anderson at the helm, maybe bring back Richard Bartel to hold down the emergency QB role. And proceed as normal. The only difference is, there's no more quarterback controversy. Derek Anderson good, bad, and otherwise will be the quarterback in 2009. In 2010 they can start over. Go draft Sam Bradford, or whoever suits their fancy. Maybe they make a run at Kevin Kolb (did I just say that?) or whoever the hot backup is at the end of 2009, or Kevin O'Connell, who knows?

The important thing is they have to get this 2009 quarterback thing off the front burner. They have too much work to do. If they keep jerking these two guys around all season long, this whole thing is going to implode... or hadn't we noticed? There has to be some stability somewhere. And quarterback is about the best place for it. Derek Anderson is at his best when he's relaxed. He's not going to relax with #10 in Mangini's ear after every play.

Anderson has some value to his team on the bench. Quinn has none. He has no appreciable experience, and isn't a terribly cerebral player anyway. So, if you're not going to have him on the field, probably best to send him packing.

I have trouble even projecting what kind of mess Mangini will have on his hands if he goes back to Quinn with Anderson constantly warming in the bullpen. I think you'll have a lot of guys snap into the "Who gives a shit" mode... some of them may be there already.

The saddest part is, Mangini could've left Quinn out there, let him take his lumps, and had a completely different week this week. At the current pace, he really only needed about two or three more weeks to go ahead and make the move to Anderson and leave this controversy behind. He could've gotten out 0-5/1-4 0-6/1-5 and, if there wasn't a significant improvement, gone to Anderson on a Monday morning. Let him practice all week, and go on with life. But Week 3 in the middle of the game? No. Anderson was Mangini's safety net if Quinn didn't pan out. Instead, he burned up the goodwill Anderson may have been accumulating on the bench, by tapping him too early and in a no win situation. He didn't let the Quinn thing play out to its conclusion (regardless of what that conclusion was). 3 interceptions later... we're back at square one. Mangini led his only bower and drew the 9 and 10.. uh oh.

-jj

@buckeye_2391 said:

Sure, where's Jason to comfort the masses?

Say no more on Linebackers....LMAO, that's good. Everybody has BASHED me for Hating our ILB's since Mike Johnson(just good), When we play Cincy for the next 6-10 years....we will regret not taking Rey. But atleast we have a WR who can't seperate

@solon16 said:

I think maybe the author mis-wrote it.

-jj

@jason-j said:

And to your point on the Steelers... Hampton couldn't start for all 4 teams in his division, Woodley's a maybe, and Old #7 is a phenomenon, but he's gonna have to watch the Colts, Patriots, and possibly the Saints from the sideline.

The Browns back 7 (or back 8 in their case) is a tough group to figure. Wright is a gifted cornerback with some obvious holes in his skill set. McDonald isn't nearly as finely tuned but he's much more aggressive, attacking. He gambles (arguably when he shouldn't), and attacks the run... but he's frequently out of control and out of position. Elam is a bit of a mystery to me. He's physically aggressive, but only to a point. He's a shoddy tackler from what I've seen. And isn't terribly fluid as a DB. Pool is an utter frustration. He's got some significant physical advantages over many safeties.... namely, he moves like a cornerback, but is a six pack and a Five Guys away from being built like a linebacker. And he's about as imposing as a marshmallow peep. Suddenly, I'm hungry... weird. Anyway...

The linebackers are a little all over the place. What they aren't is attacking, deliver-the-blow type of guys. We've got a lot of stealth tacklers... Guys who can get running backs to the ground without actually making any noise. Probably some of the nicest linebackers in the league. But I'm not sure that's what anyone wants in a linebacker. Now, Eric Barton plays with a little mean streak. His problem is that his athletic peak was a couple of years ago, and he just can't do all the things he once could... But even when he could, he wasn't a great linebacker.

Wimbley... is flatly one of the most physically talented humans I've ever seen. That alone does not a great linebacker make... as we all may have noticed by now. I don't know what you do with them, frankly... Wimbley in particular. He's one of those guys that it's really hard to give up on. As a coach, you teeter on an edge between desperately wanting to harness that talent, and despising him for wasting it.

That said, whatever their shortcomings, you're right. You add up that back 8, and you've got a defense that just doesn't close. Oh, it can hang around for a while. But it really has some holes.

-jj

Appreciate the thoughts....I see the piece/article as 4 guys on this team that could start ... on another team...Not on Any team. Maybe I read it incorrectly...as to We've got a lot of stealth tacklers...I could make a ton of jokes but you said it all....stealth as in can't be found even with radar...lol

@solon16 said:

Anyway they did this so called eval...and was one of the criteria for having PS fired "supposedly", I'm sure lerner didn't appreciate the whole buffalo thing either. Regardless...the team we have ,especially the back 7 on D....aren't even average to me. aside from BE, ES, JT on O....that's not a very good team after trying for 4 years to put one together.

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/afcnorth/0-2-80...he-Browns-.html

Yeah... That's just odd. Walker's pretty straight up. But he's certainly not what anyone would call an insider. It just doesn't pass the smell test for me. The results are just a little too tidy. That, coupled with the fact that nobody seems to have run with this story (although, I can't say I went looking real hard for it), makes it a little hard to take at face value. Well, all that and the fact that it seems like a preposterous thing to measure.

And to your point on the Steelers... Hampton couldn't start for all 4 teams in his division, Woodley's a maybe, and Old #7 is a phenomenon, but he's gonna have to watch the Colts, Patriots, and possibly the Saints from the sideline.

The Browns back 7 (or back 8 in their case) is a tough group to figure. Wright is a gifted cornerback with some obvious holes in his skill set. McDonald isn't nearly as finely tuned but he's much more aggressive, attacking. He gambles (arguably when he shouldn't), and attacks the run... but he's frequently out of control and out of position. Elam is a bit of a mystery to me. He's physically aggressive, but only to a point. He's a shoddy tackler from what I've seen. And isn't terribly fluid as a DB. Pool is an utter frustration. He's got some significant physical advantages over many safeties.... namely, he moves like a cornerback, but is a six pack and a Five Guys away from being built like a linebacker. And he's about as imposing as a marshmallow peep. Suddenly, I'm hungry... weird. Anyway...

The linebackers are a little all over the place. What they aren't is attacking, deliver-the-blow type of guys. We've got a lot of stealth tacklers... Guys who can get running backs to the ground without actually making any noise. Probably some of the nicest linebackers in the league. But I'm not sure that's what anyone wants in a linebacker. Now, Eric Barton plays with a little mean streak. His problem is that his athletic peak was a couple of years ago, and he just can't do all the things he once could... But even when he could, he wasn't a great linebacker.

Wimbley... is flatly one of the most physically talented humans I've ever seen. That alone does not a great linebacker make... as we all may have noticed by now. I don't know what you do with them, frankly... Wimbley in particular. He's one of those guys that it's really hard to give up on. As a coach, you teeter on an edge between desperately wanting to harness that talent, and despising him for wasting it.

That said, whatever their shortcomings, you're right. You add up that back 8, and you've got a defense that just doesn't close. Oh, it can hang around for a while. But it really has some holes.

-jj