DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Q and A with Eric Mangini

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November 10, 2010, 6:27 am

Q. and A. With Eric Mangini
By GREG BISHOP
BEREA, Ohio – I spent a day at the Cleveland Browns’ facility two weeks ago to report this article on Eric Mangini that I wrote last Sunday. Mangini gave me a few hours of his time, some of which we spent touring the facility, most of which we dedicated to an interview. The gist of that day is in the article, but there were quotations, ideas and themes I did not get into. Here are excerpts.

Q.How difficult was it to deal with the push-back you got initially in Cleveland? You weren’t exactly popular.

A.People want things to be better, but they don’t necessarily want to go through the hardships to make it better. And it’s never going to be comfortable. And it’s new. And people don’t understand the why. And as much as you try to explain the why, it’s hard to really understand it until you’ve gone through it. So you go through this rocky period of change to create progress. But you’ve got to be able to weather all the turbulence, all the stuff that goes with it, and you’ve got to be consistent, and you’ve got to be, you’ve got to believe in something and be able to deal with the difficulties of getting to that point.
“And it was no different from the first year in New York. It was tough. Because there was a lot of push-back. Why are you doing this? Why is this so important? Because all the little things are important. Because little things eventually become big things, and big things are a lot harder to take care of than all the little things that came up beforehand.


And one of the things I did is I said the same thing to the group in my first meeting here that I said in New York. I said, there’s going to be times where you’re going to think I’m tough. There’s going to be times where you’re going to think I’m unreasonable. There’s going to be times where you think I’m crazy. But I can promise you that all the things I’m doing, I’m doing to make sure that you achieve your potential, that you become the player you should be, that we become the team we should be, and that’s my job. That’s my responsibility.

Q.You said in another story you feel like the “cleaner” character for Pulp Fiction?

A.What I’m hoping is that you have enough time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. You don’t want to be the guy that comes in and gets everything the way it should look, and then someone else comes out and drives the car. But you deal with the job that you have in front of you. And you can’t be, and I probably learned this from Bill (Belichick) in a lot of ways, one of the things I really respect about Bill is, he’s going to make the decisions he thinks are best for the team. And there’s going to be fallout from that. But it’s those hard decisions that often made us better. I remember a ton of them, where as an assistant coach, you don’t get it.

Parcells and I talked early on, and I almost wanted to apologize to him and Bill for some of the things that I thought as an assistant coach. Because I got why they did it now. I didn’t get it for a long time. But I got it then. And it was like, God, Bill, that totally makes sense to me now, what you said and what you did, when it wouldn’t have made sense to me in a million years, because I had no frame of reference. And there’s no, you don’t get a manual for this job. There’s no class that you go to. It’s like, here you go, son. Good luck. And you’ve got to make decisions.

Q.What do you remember about your first stint here, as a ballboy?

A.This experience was fundamental in shaping my decisions on players. Now, this was one component of that, and the New England-New York Jets experience, with Bill-Bill, was what really clarified it for me. Because I was in the locker room in 1995, and in 1994, I was around players a lot more, and when things got tough, the group of guys we had, I didn’t think it was a great group of guys. And it was placing blame. It was deflecting criticism. Instead of coming together and saying, “O.K., we’re going to make this right,” it was, “he’s wrong, he’s wrong, he’s wrong, I’m O.K.” And I saw that about as clear as anybody’s ever going to see it. Then I’d go to New York with Parcells, and see the players he commits to. Then I go to New England with Bill, and see the players we commit to. And now, it was like, when things got tough, everybody looked here first (points at his chest) and said, what can I do to make this better? How can I improve individually? And we weren’t the best collection of talent, but we were the best team. And that’s why we won.

It didn’t just happen. It happened because all of the things that happened before. And when I became a head coach, it’s like, this is what wins. This is what wins. That’s why we have our core characteristics. To me, that’s what winning is, that’s what wins in football and baseball and basketball, whatever sport. And it was due to the experience here, where I got this incredible firsthand look at what can happen with adversity when you don’t have the right guys, versus what can happen with adversity when you have the right group of guys. And I just said to myself, I’m committing to that. I believe in that.

Q.Anything you would compare that to?

A.It was like, it was like throwing a turkey into a microwave. O.K. Part of it was cooked. And it looked O.K. And then as you dug down a little bit deeper, and everybody was waiting to eat, it was raw. And it got sick in a hurry. We all got sick in a hurry. But when you do it the right way, it’s a pretty good experience.

Q.What was it like when you took over the Jets?

A.Nerve-wracking. It was nerve-wracking, because everything’s a first. Everything: it’s your first meeting, it’s your first staff meeting, it’s your first practice schedule, first OTA’s, it’s your first press conference. I had done one press conference, before I stood in that auditorium in New York, and the press conference I did was attended by about three people. Because it was on a slow day during training camp, and I was like, “O.K., here’s your training, O.K., here’s 100 cameras sitting in the back of the room, plus an auditorium full of people. Go be successful.”

Q.But it’s not just the media. You’re addressing a team. You’re involved with the offense. You’re setting the travel schedule.

A.Yeah, it’s really tough. And you have to think, also, I’m 34 years old, about to be 35. But it’s not like I was 20 years in the league. I was a younger guy. And I equate it a lot to parenting. Because I find it more with Jake, my oldest. When I discipline him, or when I do something, or when I parent, I heard my parents’ voices in my head. And it’s natural. But as you get to your second child, and you’ve made some mistakes, and you’ve made some good decisions, it starts becoming your voice. It starts becoming your philosophy. And I had two very strong football fathers. Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick, who have won however many Super Bowls. How do you argue with what they did? How do you sit there and go, you know what, they’re pretty good coaches, but I’m probably better here at 34? I haven’t won a game, but that’s probably the way to go. And what I’ve learned over time is you take all these different influences that you have, but then you deliver them in the way that you deliver them. You take what you think is the best part of it, the most successful components of it, and that becomes your system. But it’s hard to, it’s hard to fight all that success, all those goods things that have happened, and have the confidence to do that right away.

Q.When did you feel the 2008 season, when you started 8-3, slipping away?

A.Talking to (Eric) Barton, who’s here, during that time frame, we lost to Denver. We had a bunch of guys late to meetings that week. So we get smoked. And I said, what did you think was going to happen? You think because we’re 8-3, teams are going to play worse against us? They’re going to play better against us. And what’s going to happen, however many weeks down the road, it doesn’t matter if we don’t take care what’s in front of us now. And then as things continued to be difficult, I said, at some point, we’re going to be sitting on our couches, watching the playoffs, and some team that we beat this year is going to make us feel real bad. Well, Arizona. And Barton was watching the Super Bowl and text messages me and says, I’m sitting on my couch feeling really bad.

Q.Do you take pride in what the Jets accomplished last season, after you left?

A.Sometimes, I feel like Pete Best. He was a big part of putting that band together, but he never enjoyed Beatlemania. He was just Pete Best, the other Beatle. And yeah, I did take pride in it. Like I take pride in seeing Dustin Keller be as successful as he is. Or Revis. Or David Harris. It’s exciting, the things that Leon’s doing in Seattle. I couldn’t be happier for Leon. He’s a great guy. Right on down the line. The strides that Nick Mangold made. The strides that D’Brickashaw Ferguson has made.

That’s great stuff. They’re going to be good players for a long time.

Q.Rex Ryan gets a contract extension. Mike Tannenbaum gets a contract extension. Is it human nature to say, why me?

A.Well, you look at it that way, and you also look at it as being thankful that Randy (Lerner) recognized the good things that I did to get another opportunity so quickly. I was unemployed for six days, or eight days. And that was nice. And the difficult thing was, I had kind of seen the movie before. And now, to go through all the stuff again, you have to knock the house down, you have to dig the basement, lay the foundation. There was going to be setbacks. There was going to be labor problems. There was going to be subcontractors that didn’t come to work. But that’s just the way it was.

Q.You’re 2-5 (the team is now 3-5). Do you feel like your team is better than that?

A.I even said that to the players after the Pittsburgh game. I was pissed off, and I said, “look, I’m not up here trying to sell you anything. Because if I was trying to sell you something, it would mean I didn’t believe in it. What I’m telling you is the truth. And we are going to beat New Orleans like we should have beat Pittsburgh. And that’s THE TRUTH. O.K. I don’t have to sell you this bill of goods, because it’s not something I’m making up. It’s just THE TRUTH. So as soon as you accept it as the truth, I’m not saying, this is what we have to do, if we follow the plan and operate this way and play this way, we will win football games.”

Q.Are you a different coach now?

A.The first year, you have to go in hard. The first year, people’s view of what’s hard is based on their previous bar that’s been set of what’s hard. So even though, I was so much lighter my first year here than I was my first year in New York. It wasn’t even close. I mean, it wasn’t even the same stratosphere of hard. But compared to what they were used to, it was ridiculously hard. Now, the other thing that I’ve done a better job of is, it’s less scripted in the sense of, I’m doing, I’m just going to be who I am, I’m just going to, I always go back to the kids. I’m going to be myself.

The other thing that happened is they’ve changed, too. As much as I may have changed, they’ve changed, too. So you can be different when the group is different. You can do a lot more stuff when the group is different. When you don’t have to worry about it.

Q.What’s it like to going back to just coaching?

A.It’s great. Like I would never have been able to go watch the Halloween parade. I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t do it. There’s been so many things that I’ve been able to do this year that I never could have done in previous years.

Q.Popular sentiment seems to be you will be fired after this season. Are you worried about that?

A. I’ve never felt that Mike (Holmgren) put some sort of clock on, or that he’s doing anything to separate himself, or disengage, or any of that stuff. If anything, I think he’s trying to help each week, which is consistent with what he said he’d do.

Q.You have New England, then the Jets, coming into town. What will that be like?

A.Well, I’ve got all my friends coming back. I’ve got New England the first week. The Jets the second week. This is like homecoming. If anything, my time in New York prepared me for that. My second game of the season was against New England. And really, if you look at the, I remember one of my first games in New England, we lost a high-scoring game to New York at New York, and the DBs didn’t play that well. I remember, it was weird being in New England’s clothes, and coaching New England against the Jets, because I was so vested in the Jets at that point. Then it was really weird being in the Jets clothes, coaching against New England. Because I was so vested in New England at that point. And I just, now, this is my team. These are the guys that, these are my guys. And as much as I care about those other people there and want them to be successful, these are, this is our team.

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It's reads like this that give me the following thoughts of Mangini:

1. I like the visionary that he is in terms of what he wants the team to be. He's a foundation layer.

Yup,, that he seems to be. He appeared well on his way with the Jets before the collapse. Look what Ryan has done with many of the same people.

2. If given the time, the foundation he creates will lead to wins. But he needs to be given the time.
No question about it

3. But will it lead to the ultimate in winning a Super Bowl? You need to be more than just a foundation layer to go all the way.

for better or worse, hes following in the footsteps of Parcells and Belichick. Both have multiple rings.. Think back on what Belichick did here. took the team apart and began to rebuild it from the ground up and it was working before Modell dropped the bomb on us.

You really want to think of something interesting.. Try this. Belichick came here, began the tear down and build up of the Browns, Modell pulls the plug.

Belichick rambles around for a while, ends up in NE, does a little tear down, and rebuild and BOOM.... 4 Super Bowl Appearances, 3 wins..

Now, fast forward 16 years, Mangini goes to the jets, tears them down and begins the build up and they pull the plug on him.. he comes directly to the Browns and in 1.5 years,. he has us winning. it's a little eerie

4. Is he so rooted in his beliefs that we won't allow a wrinkle or two here and there and alter those beliefs when it is appropriate? There is a such thing as believing to a fault. Another unknown.

obviously, we really don't know the answer to this, but I mean he comes from a thought process that is pretty rigid,, yet, did you notice the plays that were called offensivly on Sunday.. if nothing else, he appears open to new ideas...

5. Game day decisions. He needs to be able to think on his toes, make quick decisions, make the right decisions in a small time frame. Can he be this guy?

Who knows,, but in the coming weeks, I have a feeling we'll find out.

I want him to get a chance to answer these unknowns. He's earned it, IMO. My prediction is that neither he nor Holmgren go anywhere this offseason. We may be on the verge of building something here. And if McCoy can be the guy, watch out.

Oh man,, ain't that the truth

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Good read... and I never fully realized just how full-circle his NFL career has been:

Cleveland -> Jets - > New England -> Jets -> Cleveland


Pretty cool.

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Funny isn't it

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You really want to think of something interesting.. Try this. Belichick came here, began the tear down and build up of the Browns, Modell pulls the plug.

Belichick rambles around for a while, ends up in NE, does a little tear down, and rebuild and BOOM.... 4 Super Bowl Appearances, 3 wins..

Now, fast forward 16 years, Mangini goes to the jets, tears them down and begins the build up and they pull the plug on him.. he comes directly to the Browns and in 1.5 years,. he has us winning. it's a little eerie

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I never thought of that.

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1. I like the visionary that he is in terms of what he wants the team to be. He's a foundation layer.

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2. If given the time, the foundation he creates will lead to wins. But he needs to be given the time

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3. But will it lead to the ultimate in winning a Super Bowl? You need to be more than just a foundation layer to go all the way.

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4. Is he so rooted in his beliefs that we won't allow a wrinkle or two here and there and alter those beliefs when it is appropriate? There is a such thing as believing to a fault. Another unknown.

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5. Game day decisions. He needs to be able to think on his toes, make quick decisions, make the right decisions in a small time frame. Can he be this guy?

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Truth be told, I'm pleased that the results are showing as soon as they have.

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4. Is he so rooted in his beliefs that we won't allow a wrinkle or two here and there and alter those beliefs when it is appropriate? There is a such thing as believing to a fault. Another unknown.

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Oh I think Mangini is grounded in certain core beliefs, as he should be. When it comes to players and their work ethic and putting team 1st, that’s not going to change, and I don’t think it needs too. I think a lot of the idea that Mangini is inflexible is a product of his 1st season here. He has shown he is just as adaptable on the football field as any coach in the league and I actually think more them most. Look at the game plans for the Saints and now look at the game plan for NE.

His 1st season here was as much about establishing a new mode of operation as it was about trying to win a game along the way. But the real task that Mangini set for this team was a way to work and prepare and he wasn't at all flexible in that respect and likely won’t be. But he as a person has lightened up, once you have everyone working and pulling in the same direction you can do that, but until then you’re going to get inflexable Mangini, and that’s how it needed to be. There is a purpose to everything he does. It’s not done to ... people off or prove he has a bigger set of stones; it’s to win football games, period.


Clem I want to thank you for putting into words a lot of my thoughts especially the not thinking dawgs thing.

I think that fans have become so POed they just don’t know what to want. They want to win but don’t understand that there are steps that are involved in making that happen. They hear their parents talk about how it used to be and feel their getting the short end of the stick and they have, and their pissed about it.

Then you have a media driven society that hangs on every word guys like Grossi put to paper and aren’t savvy enough to realize that the media doesn’t know much more then they do. But they feel they have to latch onto something and so instead of latching onto the team they latch onto guys that know nothing and run with it. They fail to realize the negative effect it has on the team, players, and coaches.

I like to tell this story at least once a year, because I guess for me it’s important.

Along came a QB by the name of Brian Sipe. That team was a good team, but hardly anything was special about them. They had some good players nothing to write home about with the exception of a TE named Ozzi.

During that season the Browns won games by coming from behind in the forth quarter on a regular bases. The Kardiac kids were born. But during that season whenever the Browns were trailing the fans would collectively get to their feet and drive that team to win. I just can’t begin to tell you what it was like to be staring defeat squarely in the eye and watch 80,000 come to their feet and will that team to win, it actually honestly brings a tear to my eye to think about how awesome a thing it was to witness. They would relentlessly cheer and encourage that team. And guess what they won game after game after game. It worked then it would work now. I guess that’s my point.

I like to believe that the fan that lived in that generation lives in this generation as well. Somewhere in our DNA it lives. We as a fan base have a roll to fill we need to do that now this team is here, you know the one that wins games. They need our support our encouragement in the face of all odds. Let’s get back to being the best fans the fans that created the Kardiac kids.

I know most fans of today don’t remember those days those of us that do can tell you what I have said is true. Ask you mom or dad what it was like during that time. Don’t get mad when they tell you that the fans were different back then embrace it make it your own. The days of being angry and POed are closing fast, it’s time to throw ourselves back into the fight and make a positive difference for a change.

Fans can and do make a difference both good and bad, I have witnessed it. Time to get off our collective asses and get back into the game, it’s our duty just like it was the duty of the generations that came before us.

Sorry for the soap box thing guys. I really would like to see you guys make the difference that the fans used to make is the point.

IJMHO TIME to join the fight…………….


SORRY

BTTB

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A.I even said that to the players after the Pittsburgh game. I was pissed off, and I said, “look, I’m not up here trying to sell you anything. Because if I was trying to sell you something, it would mean I didn’t believe in it. What I’m telling you is the truth. And we are going to beat New Orleans like we should have beat Pittsburgh. And that’s THE TRUTH. O.K. I don’t have to sell you this bill of goods, because it’s not something I’m making up. It’s just THE TRUTH. So as soon as you accept it as the truth, I’m not saying, this is what we have to do, if we follow the plan and operate this way and play this way, we will win football games.”

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A pep talk like that could be even more powerful if the players actually liked and respected the guy.

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Yeah, and the way the players reacted to him kinda tells the whole story doesn't it

Is it just me, or have there been a bunch of naysayers over the last year and a half about Mangini?

I mean even myself, normally a fairly optimistic person, thought it might be time to cut the cord with Mangini at one point last season. But it was maybe for a couple of games and then I regained my footage and began to rethink dumping him.

I'm very glad that Holmgren decided to keep him now.. Very glad..

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Is it just me, or have there been a bunch of naysayers over the last year and a half about Mangini?

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I mean even myself, normally a fairly optimistic person, thought it might be time to cut the cord with Mangini at one point last season. But it was maybe for a couple of games and then I regained my footage and began to rethink dumping him.

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my favorite is still Joe Pos. from CNNSI calling Mangini the worst hire in the history of football (I believe we were 1-9 at the time).

He's a Cleveland native and fan and I still ping him from time to time about it (anyone can through CNNSI email feature). He's good natured about it as he says he wrote that article when he was too emotionally involved on the subject.

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I don't think I know who Joe Pos is, but it's easy to make that kinda statement with a record of 1-9.. Doesn't take a genius to think that under those conditions.

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You are correct but at least he was honest enough to admit that he wrote it out of emotion... Following a bad loss, who among us hasn't said something on Sunday evening or Monday out of emotion then eventually calmed down and realized they were way overreacting? I know I have one or two.... thousand times..

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I don't think I know who Joe Pos is, but it's easy to make that kinda statement with a record of 1-9.. Doesn't take a genius to think that under those conditions.

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You are correct but at least he was honest enough to admit that he wrote it out of emotion... Following a bad loss, who among us hasn't said something on Sunday evening or Monday out of emotion then eventually calmed down and realized they were way overreacting? I know I have one or two.... thousand times..

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I'm guilty of that and worse.. I get your drift..

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where did you see a copy of the lockerroom tape from?

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where did you see a copy of the lockerroom tape from?

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Enjoy:
http://www.clevelandbrowns.com/media-cen...22-ca910ee7595a

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Man if that Vid doesn't fire you up, then nothing will...

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thanks! i searched the sight but i must be blind...gonna watch it now!

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Who's NEXT!!!!!!!!!

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Oh man,, was that good to hear... wow

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where did you see a copy of the lockerroom tape from?

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Enjoy:
http://www.clevelandbrowns.com/media-cen...22-ca910ee7595a

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