Cleveland Calamity: A Browns Fan's Testimony

Today, it's a pleasure to introduce RSS's First Fan Testimony! Today, our long lost friend and favorite commenter Brother Yohey takes us down the long and winding road to the Dog Pound. With the news of Mangenius' ridiculous fines, Secret Service coaching, and losing his team within a month, we thought it might be nice to hear from one of the biggest Browns fans of them all after such a promising start to another season. This should be fun! Brother Yohey, take it away....

3 TD; 3 INT; 768 yards; 1-5 as starter.

As a Browns fan, you would assume that this stat line would belong to a QB from the early parts of this decade: Doug Pederson, Spergeon Wynn, Luke McCown, maybe even Tim Couch. Not so. That is the stat line for Brady Quinn, the Golden Boy drafted with the 22^nd pick in the 2007 NFL Draft by Phil Savage of the Cleveland Browns. That draft was supposed to be the cornerstone for future success. LT Joe Thomas is a two-time Pro-Bowl starter and Eric Wright is coming into his own as a solid CB. Then there was Quinn, who was to be under center, leading the Browns on championship drives that he envisioned as a child growing up in Dublin, Ohio.

After such expectations, it seems as though Quinn has taken a David Caruso-esque drop (except, there may be no CSI: Miami for Quinn’s future). I can’t put this all on Quinn; he has only 6 starts under his belt. Yes, he was 6 of 8 when he got pulled last week, but his 6 of 8 only garnered 34 yards and one INT. Not to mention the Browns were 6 of 30 on 3^rd down conversions this season.

My frustration, as a Browns fan though, goes to the handling of Quinn by the coaching staff, primarily Eric Mangini. I can’t lie; I liked the hire that the front office made at that point. He had some success in New York, albeit 3 years, after turning them around to 10-6 his first year there. I wasn’t expecting 10 wins in 2009, but every fan expected a HELL of a lot more than they have shown this year. Last year, before he was fired, Romeo Crennell announced Quinn the starter for 2009. Mangini, wanting to put his stamp on the team, announced an open competition. The off-season competition reeked of the sorry Frye-Anderson “duel” of 2007, where Romeo flipped an f’n coin before one game. Mangini, trying his best to emulate the KGB, waited until the morning before the season to “officially” proclaim Brady the starter, even though, for a fan like me, we already knew Brady won the job.

I fault Mangini and the staff, because we know that offenses run the best when they have established a consistent rhythm and timing. All preseason, the Browns seemed like a grandfather clock that was 10 minutes behind on the dong every hour. Who's to blame? Maybe it's the head coach who constantly alternated QB's and didn't even play Quinn or Anderson in the last preseason game.

I try to stay positive as a Browns fan and give them the benefit of the doubt on certain occasions, but this was a horribly managed farce from the start. The most important position can’t be handled so badly. I’m starting to lose faith in Mangini after 3 weeks. And what’s even more troubling is that the team has obviously lost faith in him as well. His dictatorial grasp on the team is wearing thin.

Most fans don’t care who is named the starter, we just want the team to do good. It’s been a rough couple decades for Browns fans. Since I’ve been born we’ve had to deal with The Drive, The Fumble, Art Modell, losing our team, Tim Couch, and now The Mangini Era. The outright deception Mangini used to fool his opponents by initially not naming a starter worked in the opposite direction: it deceived us fans, who felt he was competent. Usually fans are worried about team chemistry and cancers in the clubhouse. Whoever you root for, just be thankful that your team doesn't have a cancer in the clubhouse coming straight from the coach's office.