Eric Mangini's staff in Cleveland has started to take shape finally.  The following assistants were hired this week:

1. Bryan Cox, Defensive line coach
2. Carl Smith, Quarterbacks coach
3. Rick Lyle, Assistant strength and conditioning coach
4. Jerome Henderson, Defensive backs coach
5. Andy Dickerson, Defensive quality control coach

All are former associates of Mangini's from his time with either the Patriots or the Jets.

Mangini is not getting a ton of positive press the past few days though.  With the Jets hiring Rex Ryan to take over as head coach, they were able to retain Brian Schottenheimer as their offensive coordinator.  The New York Daily News put this quick slam on Mangini:

Sources said he was forced to modify his offense the last two years to incorporate new elements introduced by two Eric Mangini hires – Brian Daboll (Patriots) and Bill Callahan (a West Coast proponent). Callahan was retained by Ryan.

At first that may look like a pot shot, but the hire of Callahan paid off well for the Jets.  Their offensive line was able to play much better with Callahan's zone blocking scheme, and the Jets running game flourished in 2008.  While Callahan may be a "West Coast Offense guy" his help to the staff was beneficial.  As far as Daboll goes, it's hard to teach mechanics to a gun slinger like Favre, so a pass on that one might be best.

The second piece of news on Mangini is that he's apparently not talking to holdovers from Crennel's staff.  Several assistants have not heard from the coach since his hiring on January 7, 2009.  I'm not sure if Mangini is taking the Office Space "fix the glitch" approach to his staff, but it sure does seem that way.

Finally, the Browns lost a member of it's family this week, Dante "Glue fingers" Lavelli.  Lavelli was obviously before my time, but he was a great receiver who had been very popular in the Northeast Ohio area throughout his lifetime.  He had resided in Westlake for the majority of his life after retiring from the Browns.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 23rd, 2009 at 4:41 pm and is filed under Cleveland Browns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.