Rack this

[jb]

With all due respect to my colleague and Cleveland Fan stalwart Gary Benz, it’s not the little things that are killing the Browns. Unless you consider not having a healthy or effective quarterback as a little thing in NFL terms.

Gary, not to call you out at all, but "the little things"?

Give this team a quality QB, and I really believe that we are looking at 5 - 0 and Browns fever taking over the city.

I have NEVER felt better at 1 - 4. This franchise is clearly haeded in the right direction. To trump up an anti-coaching campaign right now sets this franchise back three years to a half decade.

Keep doin' what you're doin', upgrade the talent, get a real QB, and this franchise is moving toward a title.

[bac5665]

Exactly.

We're on the right path for the first time I can remember. We're certainly better than our record, playing injured with one of the hardest schedules in the NFL.

So I'm looking forward to us beating the defending SB champs for the third consecutive year! Huzzah!

Now I've jinxed us.

[scott]

Give this team a quality QB, and I really believe that we are looking at 5 - 0 and Browns fever taking over the city.

Browns would be 3-2 with a healthy Seneca Wallace playing QB in all 5 games.

[ajunior148]

I have NEVER felt better at 1 - 4. This franchise is clearly haeded in the right direction. To trump up an anti-coaching campaign right now sets this franchise back three years to a half decade.

I have been very anti-Mangini, but I agree with this. We have been in every game, and we are playing some very solid football for once.

The future seems bright in Cleveland, but the question remains, if we don't have the first pick and a shot a Luck, how do we get our QB? Hopefully McCoy is the guy and we can get AJ Green with our 1st.

[FUDU]

Give this team a quality QB, and I really believe that we are looking at 5 - 0 and Browns fever taking over the city.

Browns would be 3-2 with a healthy Seneca Wallace playing QB in all 5 games.

Bingo.

The only problem I would have with that is we would know we just aren't good enough yet to truly win, so putting up 7-8 wins with that kind of start would hurt us IMO, we need one more top 5 pick for Holmgren/Heckert. Improve as the season progresses, win SOME games, get 2-3 contributors in the draft and start the push for 9-10 wins.

Mangini's biggest challenge this season will be prohibiting a losing attitude amidst the losing season upon us.

[GodHatesClevelandSport]

I don't know if the Browns would have more wins if Wallace played in all the games, but I do know that every team they've lost to has just one loss. And two of those losses were inflicted by the team the Browns play next Sunday.

[Madre Hill, Superstar]

I have NEVER felt better at 1 - 4. This franchise is clearly haeded in the right direction. To trump up an anti-coaching campaign right now sets this franchise back three years to a half decade.

Truth. And y'all are learning now what some of us picked up on in January 2009.

Gary:


Mangini:

[Triple-S]

Rizzo had a pretty dumb take on this all, claiming you cannot win with the "smashmouth style" that mangini runs, and that everyone in the league has advanced past it.

uhh..

Pittsburgh?
Baltimore?

He also claimed that Mangini was ran out of new york because of how his team was built in a similar way to the Browns. Which is rather funny because..uhh, the Jets are still run in a similar manner, with a similar defense and the brother of the head coach of the Jets, happens to be our defensive coordinator.

I believe you can win with this style, just, it's needs a bit of upgrading in terms of talent and coaching (but NOT the HC and DC). I mean, imagine if a guy like Matt Ryan, or hell..David Garrard was under center for us, and with say..a Mike Sims-Walker at WR, and a healthy Peyton Hillis. I don't see us losing this game, and this is even with DaBoll still calling the plays, who for a lack of a better word, is an idiot.

Notice how I didn't call out on the defense on that? For what it's worth, they all but did their job this sunday. I saw them get after Ryan on a consistant basis, and even forced a turnover. While Ward was quiet for pretty much the entire game, the Browns still played well despite this and didn't seem to need to rely on him in that regard. I've been really impressed with the schemes that Mangini and Ryan have shown on the field, the problem is, when you have Eric Wright as your starting corner, the whole play could go to hell in a hand basket.

I like where this team is going, and I agree with JB and Peeks in that regard.

[yogi]

Keep doin' what you're doin', upgrade the talent, get a real QB, and most of all, get an OC that knows what the hell he's doing, and this franchise is moving toward a title.

fixed it for ya JB.

I know, Daball has been in football all his life, Holmgren, Heckert and Mangini all know football and who am I to question Daball?

But IMO, this guy screwed us last year and with better talent and support all around him, is screwing us WORSE this year.

I hate this friggin guy. HATE this moron. HATE.

[Hikohadon]

Keep doin' what you're doin', upgrade the talent, get a real QB, and most of all, get an OC that knows what the hell he's doing, and this franchise is moving toward a title.

fixed it for ya JB.

I know, Daball has been in football all his life, Holmgren, Heckert and Mangini all know football and who am I to question Daball?

But IMO, this guy screwed us last year and with better talent and support all around him, is screwing us WORSE this year.

I hate this friggin guy. HATE this moron. HATE.

AMEN.

I don't think I overstate it when I quote Al Capone from The Untouchables:

I want him DEAD! I want his family DEAD! I want his house burned to the GROUND! I wanna go there in the middle of the night and I wanna PISS ON HIS ASHES!

[peeker643]

I thought I was gonna get some blow back for the 'licking an electrical transformer' crack I made.

Apparently not from here.

Though there's probably some sobbing bucket of lard in New Philadelphia who lost their uncle to just such an accident. They'll bitch me out about my lack of sensitivity.

[Giggity]

is it at all possible that mr. gary benz just changes the order of his paragraphs and actually submits the same anti-eric mangini article each week?

maybe it just seems that way. long time lurker and hate to get off on negative note but this thread popped up and this place is better than the same column each week. keep up the overall good work.

[gdbenz]

To the extent anyone can feel good about a record that projects to 4-12, this would be the team to make one feel that way. We can all speculate that IF the Browns had a good, healthy quarterback they'd be 5-0, but the fact is that they don't have a good, healthy quarterback and even when the two quarterbacks who aren't healthy do heal, we still won't have two good quarterbacks. What we have is two serviceable quarterbacks, players that can manage a game much better than what we've been used to these last several seasons. That is an upgrade but it is a far cry from where this team needs to be.

I think I've been very accomodating to Eric Mangini this season but I'm sure others may disagree. His week to week coaching and his overall demeanor have been much better this season and you can tell that there is a much greater optimism about the players than there was last season. That's all to his credit. That doesn't mean he doesn't make mistakes each week nor should it mean that mentioning those mistakes is the equivelant of being anti-Mangini. If one were to go on an anti-Mangini screed, it would start with his selections of Massaquoi and Robiskie last season. It would continue with his dogged support of a very unimaginative Brian Daboll and would end with his paranoia about giving the fans any useful information about the team they follow and support with their very hard earned dollars.

And when you do analyze each of the games this season, as I do for this site, it really has come down to the little things that have made the difference in the individual games. Even Mangini would concede that point. The Browns have certainly been competitive this season, far more so than last. Talent still is the difference but if you really look back at each game, you'll find a little mistake here or there that probably made all the difference and that includes a bunch of little mistakes the Bengals made that helped the Browns get that first win.