Worst Show on Turf: Eric Mangini's Cleveland Clowns

CLEVELAND -- The mental welfare of this perpetually beleaguered, nationally pummeled, unemployment-burdened, sports-doomed, pray-if-LeBron-leaves city was fairly stable between 1996 and 1998. Those were the three years when the NFL didn't exist by the lake, when civic outrage over the Browns' devastating departure to Baltimore faded into a hope that something better and more loyal was on the way. Who knew that not having them at all was a far saner fate than resurrecting them for the next decade?

And how many folks would like to light the franchise on fire about now, just as the Cuyahoga River once went up in flames in Cleveland's most infamous moment?

In a league bottom-heavy with awful teams, the Browns are the most dysfunctional and harmful to one's equilibrium. The despair reached a head Monday evening, when thousands of empty seats greeted the Browns and Ravens on a chilly, drizzly night. Two longtime season-ticket holders had urged fans to boycott the start of the game by staying out of the stands, but the protest didn't really materialize. People just stayed home, unable to sell their tickets, which was a blessing given the putrid nature of the Browns' latest debacle. It's bad enough that one of pro football's proudest franchises left town, moved to Baltimore, became the Ravens and brought a Super Bowl championship to a city that once lost its own team, the Colts, to Indianapolis. But it's much worse to watch these current Browns shame the legacy of Jim Brown and Otto Graham and Paul Brown while regularly making national headlines for all the wrong reasons, many bordering on the bizarre.

The Browns lost for the 16th time in the last 18 games and their ninth straight at home, falling 16-0 in a game that punished the senses of anyone dumb enough to attend. As if the competence of Eric Mangini wasn't being doubted enough -- why is this man a head coach in the NFL? -- why would he try a ridiculous razzle-dazzle play in the final seconds of a chippy game instead of taking a knee? There was Joshua Cribbs, one of the team's few NFL-worthy players, catching a pass from quarterback Brady Quinn and pitching a lateral to tight end Robert Royal. And there was Baltimore's Dwan Edwards, popping Cribbs and laying him out on the turf, leaving him stone-cold motionless as time expired. In a metaphor for everything that is wrong with this franchise, Cribbs was removed on a stretcher, placed in an ambulance and taken to a hospital after players from both teams surrounded him in prayer. He had feeling and movement in all of his body parts and was released from the hospital in the wee hours. But still ...

What the hell was Mangini doing? Especially when the Ravens were still angry, believing Quinn chop-blocked and rolled into Terrell Suggs' knee after an interception, forcing him to leave the game. "With five seconds left in the game, and you're down 16-0, to throw a hook-and-lateral, what's the point of that?'' said Ravens defensive end Trevor Pryce, echoing my thoughts. "I'm not trying to question their coaching; it's none of my business. But you see what the result was. You do a hook-and-lateral play with a whole bunch of guys that are big and run fast, people are running around crazy and someone is going to get hurt."

Ray Lewis, Baltimore's emotional leader, left no doubt that the Ravens were incensed about Quinn. "That's an illegal blow. I don't care how you want to look at it,'' he said. "When you're running down and you're looking at the quarterback going at somebody's knees who doesn't even have the ball. I want to see if he gets the same fine I got or even higher. Now this man (Suggs) is out four or five weeks because of some baloney like that."

Just as Edwards denied he was trying to injure Cribbs, Quinn denied he was trying to injure Suggs. "There was definitely no ill intent behind it. I was trying to go for the ball carrier," he said. "Suggs came across at the last second in my vision. I would never wish that upon anyone. I was upset about it on the field. We worked out in Arizona together. I couldn't be any more sorry about that. That was never the intent. I'm sorry to Terrell and the rest of their team. I apologize to him and his teammates.''

Quinn and the Browns should apologize for their affiliation with the NFL. There are college teams -- seriously -- that would beat them. The quarterbacking switch to Quinn didn't help, obviously, as he completed just 13-of-31 passes for 99 yards and a 23.5 passer rating. Not once did the Browns penetrate beyond the Ravens' 45.

"It's not like we were avoiding that part of the field,'' Mangini said.

Sure looked that way. It might help if Mangini would let Quinn throw deep, but clearly he doesn't trust him. "I've tried a lot of different things and obviously it's not been successful enough,'' Quinn said. "We're going to have to keep trying things until we get to the point where we need to be." That's not what a Browns fan wants to hear. The average life expectancy in this country is 71 years, you know?

The biggest sin a sports franchise can make is to compound one disaster with another. That's what the Browns have done, replacing the lackluster era of coach Romeo Crennel and general manager Phil Savage with the farce that is the Mangenius. In a matter of months, Mangini has: (1) caused a near-mutiny among players who think he practices them too hard and issues unfair punishments, such as the $1,701 fine handed to one player who took a bottle of water from a hotel room without paying for it; (2) thoroughly botched a quarterback situation, to the point Derek Anderson posted the league's worst eight-week passer rating since 1981 while Quinn barely can function; (3) won an internal power struggle over his ex-friend and confidante, general manager George Kokinis, who was dumped a half-season into his "tenure'' because he'd assumed he would be more than a lackey for Mangini -- and reportedly was ordered by management to seek counseling when he became withdrawn and uncommunicative; (4) managed four offensive touchdowns all season; (5) turned a boy's game into a hellish exercise that mercifully begs for yet another change in leadership.

That is expected to come at season's end, when owner Randy Lerner seeks a pillar of football wisdom. "The highest priority that I have is a strong, credible, serious leader within the building to guide decisions in a far more conspicuous, open transparent way," Lerner said. "I can maybe defend decisions by saying I've sought advice and I've brought people in, and we've gone to see people -- and I think my highest priority is to have a stable figure that represents the voice that explains the decisions."

Yet why would anyone with respected credentials want anything to do with a franchise that can't catch a break -- yet has no problem catching staph infections at its practice facility? Lerner wants someone such as Bill Parcells when conventional wisdom suggests he'd do no better than Mr. Bill. Ohhhh nooooooo! Mike Holmgren is said to be interested in the overseer role, but why would he want those headaches after leaving a much sounder franchise in Seattle? Lerner has talked with Bill Cowher, but why would he want to leave TV when he's having so much fun? Or why wouldn't Cowher take a better position in, say, Dallas? Mike Shanahan? Bet he lands in Chicago with Jay Cutler, who needs him. Only the Redskins may have a situation as bleak as the Browns, but at least they've had recent success.

The talent level demands a total overhaul. Yet until Mangini is swept out, a haze will hang over the franchise that always has defined Cleveland more than the others, including a basketball team that was nondescript until the arrival of LeBron James. As if a 1-8 record doesn't cast enough doom, the Browns will open their doors Wednesday to the NFL Players Association, which is investigating claims by players that Mangini's practices are too demanding -- as long as three and a half hours in full pads, according to a report -- and are wearing down the team. The claims might sound like sour grapes if not voiced by the respected veteran running back, team captain Jamal Lewis, who is retiring at season's end and, therefore, can sound off in ways that make everyone listen.

"There's talent all over this locker room, young and old. There's talent everywhere, but that talent has got to be ready for Sunday, it's got to be fresh for Sunday,'' said Lewis, who described his season as a "waste'' of time. "You can work all day, but if you're going to work like that, you're probably not going to get what you want out of your players. You got to take care of your crop. If you don't, when it comes time to harvest, you're not going to make no money because the crop is no good. That's that."

Last week, when the story was hot, Lewis' teammates surrounded him in the locker room at the practice facility and chanted, "J-Lew! J-Lew!'' Some interpreted it as a shot at the media, whom Lewis had just lambasted for blowing the story out of proportion. Others perceived it as a shot at Mangini. Given the circumstances this season, I'll assume the latter.

Mangini insists the Browns routinely practice two hours. "I feel good about the way we practice, the time we practice,'' he said. But he also has a voluntary, post-practice addendum known as an "opportunity period,'' designed for rookies and backups to impress the coaches. Two players, promising running back James Davis and defensive end Keith Grennan, have suffered season-ended injuries during the "opportunity period,'' which also was investigated by the league and sounds like an opportunity to unnecessarily risk injury. "I believe in this fundamentally," said Mangini, who said he first was introduced to the practices while coaching under Bill (4th-and-2) Belichick in New England. "Over time, so many guys have benefited from it. I think it increases the possibility of success."

But when his team is 1-8 and scores less in nine games than Peyton Manning does in nine quarters, it seems the only increased possibility is Mangini's dismissal. That would be a remarkable comedown for a coach who took the New York Jets to the playoffs in 2006, ratted out Belichick in the "Spygate'' scandal, started 8-3 last season, then swirled into a downward spiral that led to his firing. The fact Brett Favre is having marvelous success this season in Minnesota, after struggling last season with Mangini, doesn't help the Mangenius' cause. He has lost 12 of his last 14 games and Lerner may have to eat the final three years of Mangini's deal, which would add to expensive payoffs to former employees. They owe Crennel and Savage about $20 million. Kokinis, who may be sabotaged legally by the Browns, was making $1 million annually. If Mangini is fired, the Browns will owe him $9 million. That has led to a thought that Lerner may stick by him and urge the next football boss to do the same.

Bad idea.

"I still believe in Eric, and we're trying to give him the resources he needs to be successful,'' said Lerner, who isn't trusted by Browns fans who suspect he cares more about the stake in his European soccer team. "We all knew the situation we were in when Eric took over.''

"This is a process," Mangini said. "There's things that go along with that and that doesn't mean we're not looking to win every game, it doesn't mean we're not looking to improve each week. On the contrary, that's exactly what we're going to do. Randy and I share the same vision, and that's something that we talked about. And what we do talk about quite a bit is what's the best way to achieve that. I've always had good conversations with him and always will. But I also believe in the things that we're doing and I understand it doesn't happen overnight. There's not one formula in terms of specific ingredients, but there is a very specific approach that you have to take and I believe in that. It has been successful. It will be successful here."

The Browns won't even crawl out of the abyss, much less succeed, until they find a quarterback. At least Anderson had a track record with a decent 2007 season, but he plunged into the black hole with reckless, exasperating mistakes. Quinn showed promise last year in a late-season start against Denver but has regressed under Mangini. There are suspicions that Mangini benched Quinn just long enough so that it's impossible for him to attain an $11 million incentive bonus for taking 70 percent of this season's offensive snaps. No wonder Quinn put his house up for sale. If he doesn't show marked improvement, he could become trade bait while the Browns -- whoever is coaching and running them -- start over with Jimmy Clausen or Sam Bradford.

"That's kind of how I've learned to live life, at least in the NFL," Quinn said.

Now hear this: The Browns are not part of the NFL. If there were a soccer team in the Premiership, they'd be relegated to a lowly place. Allow me to speak for Cleveland in saying the city was better off without them.