Written by Mansfield Lucas

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Trust your instincts. And no matter how bad things are with the Cleveland Browns, they can always get worse. That's what this Browns' season has taught Mansfield Lucas. After initially lambasting Randy Lerner's hire of Eric Mangini. But slowly, over time, training camp pushed the ole optimist button in him. And how foolish he now feels in hindsight. Is there any value Eric Mangini brings to this team? Any at all? Ole' Mansfield gives us his thoughts in his latest column.

Trust your instincts. And no matter how bad things are with the Cleveland Browns, they can always get worse. That's what this Browns' season has taught me. 

I thought Randolph dropped the ball in his hiring process of Eric Mangini. I didn't understand the tunnel vision toward this guy. From the bizarre solitary presser that Lerner sort of gave when he found out Mangini was unceremoniously shoot-canned to a Manhattan ticker tape parade of gleeful Jets' fans; I didn't understand the small gene pool of the search given how this was the most important decision in Randy Lerner's public career. He had to know that fan base patience was near its end and a failure at this point would probably start movements demanding he sell the team and divest himself of the public trust he was abusing.  I didn't understand why a veteran NFL executive wasn't brought in as a team president. I didn't understand why Eric Mangini was plucked from failure and given the keys to the kingdom carte blanch. I thought his April draft was an exercise in "I'm so smart, I'm foolish, and I can prove it." But slowly, over time, training camp pushed the ole optimist button in me. I drank the Kool Aide ^TM of "team first". I bought into a rebuild on the fly. I blamed Romeo Crennel and expected some coaching up improvement while we developed younger players.  

What a dolt I was. 

This guy can't even inspire a good rant in me anymore. Every single time I have believed it couldn't get worse since 1999, it has. It always gets worse. I can't possibly imagine this team being less talented, more apathetic, more poorly prepared, and have fewer young players with any potential than it is now. I have really just hit my breaking point. I'm numb. It's not that I don't care; it's that I can't care. I'm just too wrung out. This team is such a pile of junk I can't even lather up a good hate. It happened to me this Sunday. 

So I'm coming out of an outstanding tailgate experience at Muni, courtesy of the Lake Erie Browns' Backers. What a class act they put on. I knew that tailgating would be the best part of the day, so I made it a social event and took my girl, who isn't even a Browns fan, but she does feel sorry for me, so she came to the game. There's been some flu with those around me at home, and I wasn't feeling top notch in the stomach area, and no, it wasn't the impending game I knew should make me nauseous. So I didn't eat as much as I should have that morning, despite the amazing catered clam bake. Instead, I drank beer like a fish processes water. That always settles a stomach doesn't it? Come game time, I was feeling no pain. 

So we climb up Everest into our seats and I'm just watching what only the Browns can claim is a "football game". What a complete embarrassment for what is ostensibly an NFL team. And much like Ralphie getting hit in the face with the ice ball from a bully, there was this little flicker of anger that started to burn. Man, I was getting PISSED.   

Pissed that Eric Mangini and Brian Deadbolt are too damn dumb to coach up what is the healthy starting offense of this team they assembled. 

Pissed that other than Alex Mack, not a single drafted player can compete, and I'm supposed to be all happy Mangini can now blow at least 11 more picks this coming draft. 

Pissed that a beer is $ 7 and I forgot to stop at the ATM.  

Pissed that the bleachers are now peeling paint and have been bleached pink. 

Pissed at every aspect of the alleged football team not named "Cribbs" or "Costanzo". 

Pissed I bought into this fiasco. 

Pissed that Lerner loves This Guy because this is all about some misguided delusion to right the Cleveland Bill Bellichick "mistake" as he sees it and that he can related to a well-spoken Williams College preppy on a personal upper-crust level. 

Pissed that this unmitigated disaster will continue for three more years until the deed will inevitably be done and the next new buffoon Randy hires can rinse, lather, and repeat. 

Most of all, I was pissed that Randy Lerner owns the team I love. 

About then the scoreboard hit 21 - 3. The fahns were chaunting "Brady! Brady!" and I saw them. A row of Packer fans about ten rows down. 

Now I've grown up just a tiny bit over the past few years about this stuff. Was a day I wanted to throw crap at and fight with any fans rocking any gear but "Browns" in what I thought was my house. Now? So long as it's not black and gold and you don't act the fool but come correct with respect and don't hate, I can coexist. And truth be told, Packer fan comes with much respect as one of the old time non-teal or black teams. But these cheese heads were standing up with they arms waving and taunting. And I'm thinking really? Seriously? Who the freak taunts Browns' fans? Do you run over the back end of squirrels and then get out of your car and taunt them as they die from disembowelment in paralysis? Even the Appalachians feel sorry for us and they live in trailer parts and share false teeth. Anyway, one of ‘em is rocking a Mark Chmura jersey. That tell you all you need to know about that tool shed. Unfortunately, I have a damn near encyclopedic memory when it comes to all sorts of crap information, like alleged sports felons. Mind you, this doesn't work for anything remotely useful, like day trading, just twisted and infamous sports' trivia. So of course, even in my angry, inebriated state, I start dropping copious amounts of f-bombs on Chmura jersey taunting tool shed replete with accurate references to hot tubs and alleged misconduct of an unsavory nature with an underage female. That was the long version. My short version on Sunday was limited to two normally four letter words, the first turned into a gerund form, the second with an "ist" added onto it.  I lost it. I mean, completely and totally lost it. The Browns had reduced me to a cartoon character of rage, spewing filth from my wide-open drunken brat hole.  

The next thing I remember even somewhat lucidly was my pulchritudinous companion, all five foot nothing hundred five pounds of her, basically throwing me up against a wall just out of the bleachers practically pimp-slapping me telling me to shut up and stop being a moron. Not only because I was embarrassing her, she's sort of used to that. Not only because I was probably going to get cited. But because the Cleveland Browns' aren't worth it. 

She was right. 

I began to calm down. I thought about staying for the rest of the game, but for the first time in my memory, I just left at half-time. The two of us joined about 35,000 - 40,000 people and just cashed it in. 

That's where I am with this team. I melted down and now they will no longer be worthy of my ire. You'll never get an "I'm not a fan anymore" take from this fan. I'll never suck my thumb. But now I am numb. Just numb. 

I literally don't know what to think. No matter how flawed the hiring process might have been, only Ted Stepien would fire a veteran NFL coach after one season. And yet I watch the fans, I watch this team, and I can't come to any other conclusion than Mangini's gotta go. It makes zero logical sense. Nothing about this franchise makes any sense anymore. I don't know what to think. 

Hear me out. If Mangini were just a jerk and alienated fans, on one hand, I don't really care that much. I have as much arrogant fan bastard in me toward the Mike Reghi Show callers as any fan who considers himself intelligent. It makes zero sense to be calling for Mangini's head not even halfway through season one. But this the THIRD HOME GAME into the Eric Mangini Era. Think about what you saw on the field. Think about what you heard from the stands. Listen to the Browns Red Zone Show on STO. Even Jimmy Donovan and Tony Grossi are just ridiculing Mangini, with Donovan talking about the need to for fans to scout the Ivy League to become familiar with Mangini's next high draft choices - after multiple trade downs. Three home games and half season into Eric Mangini's coaching tenure, it is now worse than Butch Davis panic attacking. It is worse than Chris Palmer rubbing his ample forehead playing Spergyn Wynn and talking about runaway trains. It is worse than Phil e-mailing fans during the game. And it can get even "worser". I suspect that it will. It isn't even mid-season into year one.  

So how ‘bout THIS guy, anyway? Is there any value Eric Mangini brings to this team? On the field? Off the field? For the present? For the future? The crazy, petty rumors of why Quinn doesn't play? The alleged Napoleonic complex?  Ehhhhhh.... I could even get past all of that were there any results at all.  So Eric Mangini isn't well liked. So what. Personally, if he were a complete jerk and the team looked even a modicum better than last season when an injured squad limped to 4 - 12 with the enthusiasm of a kindergarten class being fed boiled spinach for lunch, I wouldn't care. I am that much of a fan. But now we have a loathsome figure that somehow made a really bad team look worse, a lot worse. There is not one visible, tangible sign of improvement anywhere in this football organization. Anywhere. In fact, it looks as though the polar opposite is true. Plus he's fat. The players look like they have quit. The fans have quit. No one cares. 

Randy Lerner has finally managed to put his imprint on not only the entire organization, but also the fan base.    

So this is a throw away season. I knew before hand it would be. I knew that I would need to be patient. But at least there are a lot of young players playing and developing.  

What's that? Never mind. 

At least there are eleven draft choices that can build the team because Mangini drafts so well. 

What's that? Never mind.  

At least Mangini has had success building teams and a track record of success. In a few seasons we'll look back on this rebuilding effort and laugh at the bad old days.      

What's that? Never mind.  

And if Mangini doesn't make it, at least we'll have Randy Lerner to choose another GM and coach. 

Numb. 

It is long past time to stop worrying about one Eric Mangini. He's hopeless. The team is hopeless. The future is hopeless. The fan experience is hopeless. And Eric Mangini is as hopeless as he is pointless. Only one man related to this organization is now relevant. Salvation needs to come from a higher personnel change.