MLB News: Indians reveal Corey Kluber out four to six weeks
August 7, 2013Tigers 6 Indians 5: Demoralizing doesn’t even describe this one
August 8, 2013
While We’re Waiting is the daily morning link roundup that WFNY has been serving up for breakfast for the last several years. We hope you enjoy the following recent collection of yummy and nutritious Cleveland sports-related articles. Anything else to add? Email us at tips@waitingfornextyear.com.
“Every team has its different routines. Often the most difficult part of being on a new team is getting adjusted to the way they do things. The team takes on the personality of its head coach, and every coach is different. In this case, it is Eric Mangini. I had heard a good deal about Coach Mangini from a few of my teammates in Denver. We would sit around the table in the cafeteria and talk shop, and several times I heard tales of Mangini’s evil. New York, while he was coaching the Jets, was hell. No, not hell. Worse. Three-and- a- half- hour practices. Busted bodies. Jangled nerves. Cussing. Yelling. Tension. Belittling. Football, the game, was nearly unrecognizable under Mangini’s demented eye. Hell was no match for it.” [Jackson/Scene Magazine] Also, hear the podcast with Nate Jackson and our own Craig Lyndall. [Scene Podcast]
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“Dion used the rest of that first game to get himself warmed up and shake off some rust. After assessing the skill level of his CavsZine competition, he offered us a friendly wager of five push-ups on the outcome of the next game.
What choice did we have? Of course we accepted the challenge.
Dion came out strong in the second game, netting strikes in two of his first three frames. But somehow I started off even hotter, going strike-spare-strike-strike to begin the final game. Things were just getting interesting when we had to pause our competition so Dion could go sign autographs at his pre-set time.” [Cox/Fear the Sword]
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“With that in place, less than two years and just three technical offseasons into the new CBA, we still don’t know how it will all shake out. Maybe this league will feature a litany of baseball-styled top-heavy and lower-rung payrolls. Then again, maybe the owners deserve what they’re getting after over a decade of stupid spending and poor planning in the years following the 1998-99 lockout.
The fans, of course, deserve none of this. In the place of that frustration, though, comes the 2013-14 campaign. One that could produce a ridiculously-entertaining regular and postseason – even if it ends with the same result, and LeBron James hoisting the trophy for the third straight June.” [Dwyer/Ball Don’t Lie]
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“The legend of Dontre Wilson has been shrouded in mystery for an entire summer. On the fourth day of Ohio State’s fall practice, the media finally got a glimpse. Verdict: the speedy Texan is as advertised.
Wilson lined up at both running back and receiver. On multiple occasions, he abused members of the secondary. In a scrimmage against the defense, Wilson caught a pass from Kenny Guiton at the 10-yard line, but had to navigate C.J. Barnett and Doran Grant. No problem. The afterburners came on, and Wilson outraced both of them to the end zone, even though both defensive backs had the angle.” [Rowland/Eleven Warriors]
75 Comments
Except in Pittsburgh where they only win because of the supportive fan base. They demand success.
A 4-12 team that was terrible and was in salary cap hell, to a 5-11 team (that still didn’t have a quarterback — Mangini’s fault, right?) that beat two of the league’s best teams, and competed in every game. It was obvious progress. It will never stop being amazing that Browns fans of all people would react to obvious progress with such vitriol.
There are a lot of reasons why Cleveland is different, including the whole collapse of the industrial heartland and Cleveland’s unique place in it, but to your question about the media, the idea that it doesn’t matter at all is incredibly cynical. And one really has to go out of his way to avoid making a connection between the Palm Sunday treatment that Holmgren got in Cleveland (including with respect to his insane treatment of Mangini), and his performance while he was here.
Mmm hmm, in five years he’ll be 47. Maybe he doesn’t get another head coaching gig until he’s 55. It will be well worth the wait.
Just as the fact that the Niners hired Mangini says a lot, it’s also telling that when Mangini did return to the league (after spending a couple of years collecting millions from Randy Lerner while enjoying time with his family and young sons), it was with a legitimate organization. He’s surely learned a lot from the experience of working for Woody Johnson and Randy Lerner-types.
Finally, I love this: “In short, we all (like, literally everyone in the entire world) know how you feel about Mangini. It was three years ago. Get the F over it already.”
If Nate Jackson hasn’t, why do I have to? What is it that you’re really upset about, Dan? You should think deeply about this.
Ugly girls need love too.
But that’s why cats were created.
I deconstructed/FJM-ed Jackson’s indefensible excerpt over at Frowns for those that are interested: http://www.clevelandfrowns.com/2013/08/larry-dolan-caricature-contest/#comment-993379742
Beautiful.
Ha! The day you make me upset is the day I give up reading about sports. I’m just tired of reading the same tired, old, half-assed arguments from you. You’ve been grinding this same ax for three years, and your argument is–and has always been–full of holes. This has been the same every time we engage in this debate.
He’s not coming back, we’ll never know if the team would have won in 2011 under him had he stayed, and no matter how much you want it to become the narrative, hindsight is not going to change the majority view of Mangini’s tenure here: it was a failure. in 2010, for every win over the Saints and Patriots, there were multiple disgusting losses. You can’t hang your hat on the Pats game and the Saints game (a game they went into 1-5, BTW, and which they won thanks to FOUR picks–two for TDs–thrown by a HoF QB, not to mention a 68-yard fake punt) and talk about how “competitive” that team was when they turned around and lost to 2-10 Buffalo and 2-11 Cincinnati. Funny, those games always get left off of your 2010 Competitive Highlight Reel.
As for Jackson himself, I never said he didn’t need to get over it. You might have seen from other comments I’ve left (https://waitingfornextyear.com/2013/08/while-were-waiting-dont-invite-nate-jackson-to-dinner-with-eric-mangini/#comment-993233758) that I think there’s really no point in assigning great relevance to this article. You could have just stopped with your comment “The Jackson piece and the fact that it’s even in the paper is such an incredibly stupid thing,” and you’d not have heard a word from me. It was when you had to trot out the same, tired talking points about how unfairly Mangini was treated that I responded.
Holmgren’s gone. Lerner’s gone. There is literally no one left in the entire organization that had anything to do with whatever injustice you perceive Mangini to have suffered. So, in that respect, you’ve been vindicated.
So, yeah, you need to get over it.
Here’s the question that you really need to think deeply about: suppose that EVERYONE else all of sudden says, “Pete, you know what? Even though your argument has always been full of holes, we were ALL wrong, and you’re right,” what does that change for you?
I’m sincerely curious to know the answer.
“…a 5-11 team … that beat two of the league’s best teams, and competed in every game.”
And also–after beating those two good teams–lost to two teams that were a combined 4-21 at the times the games were played. PROGRESS!!
My vitriol, if you want to call it that (I wouldn’t) isn’t directed at Mangini. It’s directed at your argument which is full of hypotheticals and half-truths.
First you learn how to win, then you learn how to win consistently. And of course by the Bills and Bengals games, about half of the starters on an already shaky roster were out with injuries. Nick Sorensen and Bubba Ventrone played in the secondary AT THE SAME TIME in those games. Delhomme and Chips each QB’d on one leg in those games, respectively. Competing in every game in 2010 from where they started in 09 was undeniable year over year progress. Competing in every game with that roster was a feat in and of itself. There’s no half truth about either of those things. You really should relax.
Even if Mangini was the worst coach ever, the fact that people are taking a guy who wasn’t good and/or dedicated enough to make the roster of the friggin’ 2009 Cleveland Browns seriously is beyond ridiculous.
“Here’s the question that you really need to think deeply about: suppose that EVERYONE else all of sudden says, “Pete, you know what? Even though your argument has always been full of holes, we were ALL wrong, and you’re right,” what does that change for you?”
Is the inherent value of the light of truth and a lesson learned not obvious enough to you? I suppose I should have guessed.
If anything, the fact that he ran this joker off just reinforces my belief that Mangini is the kind of coach I want.
“We absolutely have no way of knowing.”
Uh, sure we do. The obvious progress from ’09 to ’10 strongly suggests the same from ’11 to ’12. This is why in the history of non-Mike-Holmgren/Bob-Lamonte-run NFL football teams, a head coach has never been fired after a season in which his team made obvious progress. It’s also why the treatment of Mangini here by the media and fans alike is one of the most outrageously stupid Cleveland sports things to happen on a long list of them (including Scene’s decision to publish this excerpt).
There’s no way to look at the 2010 roster and say some kind of miracle had been performed. I mean come on. Anyone can fire or trade high-priced garbage and replace it with medium-priced, over-the-hill mediocrity.
Roster purge had to be done? Yes. Was done optimally. Not really. But overcontrol and biting off more than you can chew is a hallmark of devotees of He-Who-Inherited-The-Highest-Value-QB-Of-All-Time.
People are REALLY missing the point of this portrait in oil and water. It’s a guy writing a book about how the nfl treats it’s labor pool as discardable, interchangeable, commodities. Love or hate Mangini (or love/hate him like I kind of do) the guy is the head totem for the Spartan mentality that embraces this idea of system uber player. It’s a natural antagonism.
To come in with “this guy sucks so who cares what he says” is so incredibly off base.
This is a good point. And for these reasons and many others, it’s just as incredibly off base to come in with “see, Mangini was terrible.”
That may be the case, but when you write an article that savages one coach while praising another I think you’re opening yourself up to a certain level of criticism. Saying the NFL is broken is one thing. Blaming one coach (and making ad homs against him) is another.
In other words, I stand by my ethnic slur. Do your worst, you filthy, pretentious savages.
This ain’t rocket science. He’s saying the NFL is broken, and broken in the exact way that the Mangini system embodies. So it’s a natural antagonism. I’m not saying anything beyond that. Mangini coaches like a D2 college coach. In itself, innocuous. Combine that with big-money hyper-corporate hyper-efficiency and it looks like poison to me. I really do pause at the “durability is more important than ability” sign. Is there a clearer message than that?
Agree. Mangini just happens to practice the Spartan system that is ethically incongruous with the modern money soaked corporatism of the NFL. Not incongruous. Something worse…. Something like synergistically poisonous. In the sense this guy is talking about. I do think he– mangini– would have won more football games than shurmur.
Since it has to be explained, I’m going to say – “yes”. Feel free to say that I’m just dense.
Don’t mean to say this guy is fully fleshing out that point…I see it reads like that. Its just natural that a guy writing a book about the NFL treating players like a commodity would find mangini anathema. Because that really is the heart and purpose of a spartan system.
You Persian? What you got against Spartans?
“Truth” implies there is no evidence to the contrary, which is clearly not (wait for it) true in this case. You’re working in “theory” which is a set of assumptions based on certain evidence (while, in this case, conveniently ignoring other evidence) that cannot be disproven. And that has always been my issue: you preach a certain set of assumptions that no one can truly prove or disprove, but you preach it as absolute, proven Gospel.
But, overall, you’re right: there’s a lesson to be learned here. That lesson is that it’s time to move on. There’s literally no benefit anymore. Lerner’s gone. Holmgren’s gone. Save burning the PD to the ground (which, it’s well on its way by itself, TBH), what’s left?