Red Right 88

Cleveland sports fan and sports writer

Name:
Location: Cleveland, Ohio, United States

quit my job decided to drive west

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Just another day in Cleveland

Anderson is the new starting quarterback.
Wedge and maybe more importantly Joel Skinner are fired.
Delonte is still missing and apparently not answering the phone.

I got back to Cleveland in the wee hours of Monday and still have not seen the sun.

Calling me depressed doesn't do it justice.

And yet maybe the stupidest thing I have heard all week is that Arby's is selling their combos for $5.01. Lame sauce. Some ad dude is getting fired soon.

Monday, September 28, 2009

If the players keep quitting then screw those players

I should just walk away. But something has been bothering me about all this media and fan piling on Eric Mangini. I am not going to defend the guy and proclaim him to be the answer -- however this notion that he is a jerk and therefore should not be the coach is absurd.

A national writer wrote that he hopes the Browns have quit on Mangini and he gets fired because he is a jerk. People are howling about the fines for water bottles or parking in the wrong space. People hate he keeps things close to the vest. Just about everyone wants Mangini to fall on his face.

And when he is 0-3, Mangini has to take it.

I keep hearing the players have quit in all three games. If that is true and not just the players are untalented and over matched then guess what -- the players need to be shipped out. If the players are going to quit because they are demanded to work and fight then let Mangini stay and destroy them.

I am not saying Mangini is a good coach or not. We don't know. Frankly at this point it is irrelevant. The Browns have drafted poorly for an entire decade. If you do that -- YOU ARE GOING TO SUCK. I don't care who is the coach. Mangini seemed like a good coach last year before Favre got hurt. NFL players want a country club. Very few want to get pushed and prodded. How many NFL titles have been won by a country club coach?

It is easy to pile on Mangini. He has done himself no favors. But the Browns are awful and most of it has nothing to with Mangini.

Reports have it that Elam is the Brown fined the max amount for taking the water bottle. Elam is already on his second chance in the NFL because of his run in with the law. Mangini traded for him and brought him over from the Jets because he believed he was a difference maker. Mangini then gave all of his players explicit instructions and then Elam did not follow through. This was the coach's guy -- the difference maker he brought over. If Mangini didn't come down with the full fine, how does he look to the rest of the players? You make call it one bottle of water. I call it as the coach insisting on following through. If you aren't going to follow through on the little things then you aren't going to follow through on the big things.

So what if Mangini is a jerk. Tom Coughlin was hated by his players when he got to the New York Giants. The media tried to run him over every year. Now he has won a Super Bowl you don't hear a word. I hear you can't be a Belichick before you win. Well Belichick was. Lombardi was. Chuck Noll was.

Not I am not saying Mangini is any of those coaches. But Chuck Noll sucked as a coach until his team drafted a motherload.

One of the guys the Browns passed over was Josh McDaniel. McDaniel was considered a jerk all off season. People said he was over his head. Well he is 3-0. Why he is 3-0? Well he inherited a team that should have went to the playoffs last year. And while he lost a pro bowl quarterback -- McDaniel knew Cutler wasn't the type of player he wanted. McDaniel took the heat and let Cutler go. But the reason McDaniel is 3-0 is because of a miracle touchdown against the Browns and he played the Browns and Raiders. McDaniel in three weeks has changed his image but honestly we still have no idea how good of a coach he is and we won't for a while.

Anyway I am rambling. But my point was supposed to be this -- if the players are quitting on the coach after three games. Get rid of the players. If they don't want to play for a jerk -- fine then go work a real job. These are highly paid athletes -- man up and work hard. You are embarrassing yourself. I understand you can't get rid of a whole team at once but if they want to quit then I hope Mangini makes it worse for them. Have them hit in pads all year. Fine them for everything. Make their lives hell. Because how this team is playing disgusts me and I can't respect anyone who quits even if the coach is a jerk. Hell Mangini could be the worst coach of all time and the biggest jerk in the history of the world. But these "men" who are highly compensated can't work hard for four quarters whatever the score is? I am sorry but that's on the players more than the coach. Be men, have pride.

I know most the players could care less what name in on the front of the jersey. But I do. If they don't have enough talent to win than it is what it is. But having enough heart to compete for four quarters that is internal and should not be dependent on any coach. Jerk nor not.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Rock bottom

I'm tired.

Been stuck in Wisconsin since Friday helping my sister's family move into their new house. The cable isn't hooked up yet so I couldn't watch football on Saturday or today. I found a Browns game feed on the Internet but thankfully it crapped out rather quick and I was saved from watching every bloody minute. Still I followed play by play on a Gametracker. Just walking away never occurred to me.

I am not going to defend Mangini. But I also want nothing to do with insane meltdown. Firing Mangini fixes nothing. Lerner selling the team fixes nothing. This team is a big black abyss and it is going to take a long time to crawl out of it. You can't whiff on a decade of draft choices and fix it in one off-season. If Bill Cowher was the coach the team would be 0-3. Same with Lombardi or Paul Brown. Screaming and busting things won't change anything. At least playing Anderson in the second half will shut up the calls for the back-up quarterback. Remembering we could have gotten a first and third for him at one point doesn't help.

The Browns are what they are. A really bad football team. And next week I will be watching just like I will the week after that and the week after that.

Sometimes acceptance is the first step. My expectations can't get lower. So I think the rage and anger will dissipate.

If you want to be angry and rant go ahead. But leave me out of it. I am not arguing with the irrational anymore.

They are what they are.

EDIT: Pittspuke lost --- choked even. Ha. That made me smile.