This team lacks leadership. In the front office. In the coaches room. Yes, the players eventually have to perform on the field but evidence (Steelers, Pats, Titans) proves that coaching in the real X factor.

I don’t have a problem with it. The offensive line is the foundation of a solid football team. It’s not like the Raiders taking Janikowski in the first round. Is the C they drafted working out so far? (I’m really asking, I have no idea who their C is).

When the Jets fired Mangini, I assumed he would get another head coaching job eventually. There were too many promising glimmers for him not to. But I also assumed that wouldn’t happen until he spent several years as a coordinator somewhere. He was only a coordinator for 1 year under Belichick, right? So I was shocked when he got hired immediately by the Browns.

The team was going to be bad no matter what, but being a colossal d-bag has caused complete mayhem with that team. There’s lots of bad football teams out there, and they don’t all have players speaking out publicly about some of the brutal stuff the coach does.

Oh, and Mawae is one of my all time favorite players.

*Drafting a Center:

There’s an excellent article by Pete Prisco of CBS on drafting centers in the first round. The title is “Cal’s Mack could change lack of centers’ first round love.” Here’s a good quote from it:

“If the two tackle spots and center are the three most valuable positions on the offensive line — which everyone insists they are — why is center so under-drafted?

The answer might be a simple one: Patience.

Or lack of it.

“Teams don’t want to wait two years to have their first-round pick play,” Atlanta Falcons offensive line coach Paul Boudreau said. “And with centers, it’s such a tough position that you sometimes have to wait.”

“With big dollars paid out to first-round picks, and coaches and general managers living on the edge in this era of instant gratification, it’s easy to see why there is so much reluctance to take a position that might take some time.”

Consistent with Mangini taking the long view. Something I respect.

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*Ditching Winslow and Edwards:

Specifically, Poseur’s comment: “Giving up talent is normally not the best way to get better, and if you are inclined to give up talent, make sure you get something in return. What did the Winslow and Edwards deals net the Browns other than the addition by subtraction (seriously, I don’t know)? You need to trade those tangible assets for something else, not just sell them off at a cut rate.”

This is exactly what makes rebuilding so hard…that sometimes you really do have to get rid of guys like this, and there’s a good reason you can’t get more for them than the Browns did. There’s no question that each of them was going to leave when his contract was up, anyway, Braylon’s at the end of this season, so getting four draft picks and two potential starters doesn’t seem like such a bad haul anyway. Teams miss on high first rounders and are still able to recover. At least the Browns got something here.

Winslow was a more questionable call, but keep in mind that he actually sued the Browns franchise for millions in court in the offseason (wonder how that was resolved…never really hit the news). And there’s no question that Braylon had to go. The guy was an absolute cancer in the locker room, and its at least interesting that the Jets have won only one more game than the Browns since the trade.

The main point here is that it’s not Mangini’s fault that these guys happened to dominate the locker room when he got here. It’s not his fault that the state of the Cleveland Browns has been such a mess for ten years.

However, I do agree with Mangini on one point, the fine over the water bottle. There is a larger point there, and that is, no matter how you phrase it, it is basically stealing to take something that has a price and not pay for it. So this player got charged a thousand bucks for taking a water, I bet he never does it again.