One on One with REEPJP
June 17, 2010SABR-Toothed Triber: Travis Hafner’s “Resurgence”
June 17, 2010As we now sit and wait for training camp with real football pads it is a time to take very very early stock of your NFL team. The roster has come into focus and we have initial reports to mull over regarding rookies and free agents and any off-field incidents. This year, the word seems to be leadership. Veterans like Jake Delhomme, Seneca Wallace, Sheldon Brown, and Scott Fujita have all been brought in and are almost immediately associated with team leadership. That is a good thing, but it makes me wonder, exactly where were we a year ago? I’ll tell you.
I decided to take an early stab at comparing Mangini and Josh McDaniels.
Granted Mangini got off to a real rocky start with one of the only bona fide Pro Bowlers on the team in Shaun Rogers. Granted there were questions about his trade of Kellen Winslow. Granted Mangini seems almost magically drawn to previous Jets players. But even with all that said, he hasn’t run a Pro Bowl caliber QB and now a Pro Bowl caliber wide receiver out of town.
Well, it took a year, but Brandon Marshall was traded after a productive season in Denver to the Miami Dolphins. Jay Cutler didn’t have a good season in Chicago and Kyle Orton played over his head. It will be an interesting year in Denver, but I have the feeling that while I was wrong last year, the Browns and Broncos are going in very different directions.
This time last year, we were discussing Donte Stallworth’s plea deal on his court case. Glad that distraction doesn’t exist this year, although in the end other than hurting the receiver position on the field, I don’t think it affected the team.
Of course we were talking about quarterbacks. It is Cleveland. At the time, Eric Mangini called the two QBs even, but prior to that had given Brady Quinn the dreaded “slight edge.” The fact that you aren’t hearing either of those QBs names today makes you realize there was a of fool’s gold in the prospecting pan a year ago.
And what would any look back at last year be without something negative about Braylon Edwards? Edwards was riding the stationary bike during practice due to an unspecified injury. A commenter here at WFNY claimed to know the story.
So he may be in great mental condition BUT 2 weeks ago he was at EMH in Avon playing some basketball and twisted his ankle, it may just be a precaution but he was then at the movie theater on Saturday in an air cast when I saw him so yet another little injury for him….. He was a really nice dude but it just pissed me off he twisted his ankle in a pickup game when we are paying him millions, wear ankle braces or something!!
Finally, I was talking about Mark Sanchez, who had just signed his 5 year $60 million ($28 mil guaranteed) rookie deal that he earned in the draft spot the Browns traded away to the Jets.
This is not to say that Mark Sanchez won’t earn every one of those dollars and then some. He very well might. He could be the next Carson Palmer out of USC and be really successful. The point is that he better be for the Jets’ sake. The risk of taking a guy to lead your team that high is that whether he turns out to be that guy or not, he is going to get paid regardless. Not to mention the fact that the tendency is to build around the quarterback. You would hate to be building a team for a captain who might never be capable of taking it over.
So after that trip down memory lane, I will take the current conversation over the prior one any day of the week. How about you?
12 Comments
What do you like better? McGini or ManDaniels? It’s the new “Brangelina”.
When did the first trade for the Tribe go down last year? I know Derosa was early…maybe even in May, but I don’t remember the date of the Lee trade…I know it was within a few weeks of the deadline, but not too close. I’m pretty sure we all knew by this point that he was a goner…Vic on the other hand not so much
Whoa…I just hijacked a Browns post with an Indians reference….sorry….I was stuck on last year in general..not last year Browns only
I think half way through the season, any one of us would have taken McDaniels over Mangini…
Hopefully, half way through next season we will be glad to be under the current regime.
Yeah, but any one of us would take Mangini the 2nd half of the season over McDaniel’s 2nd half.
I’m much more comfortable with a HC who struggles early but his system, coaches and players improve as the season goes along. Especially now that we have a FO in place to take care of that portion of the equation.
you can’t have a browns flashback w/o mentioning Isis
@5
I agree. I think we learned a lot about the Mangini system in the last half of the season, and I think Mangini will improve as a HC now that we actually have a FO in Berea.
Alternative title for this post: Mangini in a Hot Tub Time Machine
Maybe this time next year we’ll talk about how there was uncertainty at the QB position and in the secondary, but how we’re coming off a playoff season where we actually won a game in the playoffs!
Didn’t Pioli want to bring McDaniels here if he got the front office job?
I wonder how this would have impacted the development of Quinn here?
@Mike – Ut’s possible, but I’m not sure they would have come in as a dynamic duo. At the time, ProFootballWeekly had a blurb about how Pioli & McDaniels might not be able to co-exist, given that each of them was leaving New England for a chance to run the show.
Also, McDaniels initially worked in Pioli’s scouting department before getting into coaching. There was some speculation that Baby Hoodie didn’t like working under Pioli.
Whoops, that obviously should be * It’s *