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Home > Blogs > Dawging the Browns > Archives > 2009 > May > 30
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Dumb move by Mangenius
By essentially forcing the rookies to take a 10-hour bus trip to work a camp at his old high school in Connecticut this weekend, head coach Eric Mangini only succeeded in adding to the Browns’ reputation as an NFL laughingstock.
The team is being ridiculed nationally, even more than usual. An entire segment was devoted to the bus trip on one of those ESPN shows Friday night, with former players weighing in on the stupidity of it all. (Granted, these shows need to fill air time and anything goes, but why supply them with the ammunition on a silver platter?)
It’s nice to help kids, but 20 hours round trip on a bus in one weekend? It’s the dumbest thing a Browns coach/executive has done since Bill Belichick cut Bernie Kosar in the middle of the 1993 season.
That means it’s dumber than passing up LaDainian Tomlinson and Ben Roethlisberger in the draft.
Dumber than when Romeo Crennel flipped a coin to determine his starting quarterback in an exhibition game.
Dumber than Carmen Policy saying “those plastic bottles don’t pack much of a wallop” after fans threw them on the field to protest a bad call against Jacksonville a few years back.
All the talking-head, ex-NFL guys on ESPN agreed that if Mangini had to take the rookies to his old high school for a camp, they should have been able to fly.
Where’s billionaire owner Randy Lerner with the private jet if this is so important? Answer: An absentee owner, Lerner probably isn’t anywhere near Cleveland this weekend (did Aston Villa have a game?), but couldn’t such a flight have been arranged with a few phone calls? Or was the jet in for repairs?
Mangini insists the bus trip was “voluntary,” but we all know what that means. When you’re a rookie fighting to make the team, it’s more like forced labor. You only hope nobody falls asleep in a meeting on Monday when they’re back at work.
If exposing the rookies to the benefits of charity work is the goal, there are plenty of good causes closer to home to keep them busy.
Funny how you don’t hear about the Steelers or the Patriots (cheating scandal aside) making such gross miscalculations and exposing themselves to endless national ridicule. Why is that, I wonder. Maybe it’s because those organizations know what they’re doing.
