Sunday's game against the New York Jets, his former team, could be Eric Mangini's defining moment as Browns coach.
View full sizeStory lines are many as Browns coach Eric Mangini's former team, the New York Jets, comes to town for a game Sunday.
BEREA, Ohio — The watershed of every NFL coach's tenure is unscripted. It can come early, or late, or in the middle of his time with a team. Whenever it occurs, it changes the course of his time to come.
For Bill Belichick, it was an event -- the firing of Bernie Kosar in the middle of the 1993 season. For Marty Schottenheimer, it was a game -- a comeback win in Minnesota against all odds at a critical juncture of the 1986 season.
Sometimes you know the watershed is at hand and sometimes you don't.
Which brings us to Sunday's Browns game against the New York Jets. So many forces are colliding in this game that it quite possibly could go down as the defining moment of Eric Mangini's time as Browns coach. We may not realize it until further down the road.
But consider the following:
•The Jets gave Mangini his start as a head coach. They fired him after his third season blew up in a late-season collapse that was epic, even for a franchise known for that sort of thing.
•In his first season as Browns coach, Mangini orchestrated two major trades with the Jets that hand-delivered them franchise quarterback Mark Sanchez and deep receiving threat Braylon Edwards. In exchange, Mangini received draft picks and several Jets players he knew he could count on.
•Refreshed by replacement coach Rex Ryan, the Jets won five of their last six regular-season games last season and advanced to the AFC Championship Game. Jets players, media and fans -- including unofficial team mascot Fireman Ed Anzalone -- rejoiced that Mangini wasn't there to screw it up. They piled on as Mangini's new team staggered through a dismal 5-11 season.
•A week ago, Mangini's Browns knocked off the Jets' biggest division rival, New England, pushing the Jets back into first place.
•Now Ryan brings Mangini's former team to Cleveland. The current Jets have a sharp edge to them, honed by the brash Ryan, their playoff run and a summertime appearance on HBO's "Hard Knocks." Edwards has symbolized the difference in the teams by expressing his joy in being traded and talking down Cleveland.
"Our approach is the humble approach," said linebacker David Bowens, one of nine former Jets who rejoined Mangini in Cleveland. "We're not looking at our successive wins and thinking we're better than anybody. We have a lot of respect for this New York team. But we're going to identify how we're going to beat them and we're focusing on that this week."
Ryan's affable joking, mostly aimed at his brother, Rob, but also at Mangini, has lightened the mood considerably. Last week, in the buildup to the showdown with former mentor Belichick, there was tension in the air. This week, it has been nothing but levity.
While Ryan has kept everyone in stitches, Mangini made a profoundly favorable impression on the New York media with his own wit. They couldn't believe he had changed so much from the coach who was wound tight during the Jets' fateful breakdown in 2008.
"I know this may sound crazy, but some people actually think I have a good personality and a little funny," Mangini said to the New York media. "It's just letting more of that out. It's just being who I am.
"I wish I could give you one example, but it's less scripted for me. It's more [that] I know what I want to say. I know the points I want to get across. Not reading it as much as just feeling it and getting the same point across, but from the heart."
At the same time, Mangini has flawlessly fielded questions about such uncomfortable topics as his firing by the Jets, the trades that provided his former team two key pieces to its puzzle, and the perception that Browns team President Mike Holmgren might be considering returning to coaching if Mangini doesn't get the job done.
"I think I'm a better person for it and a better coach for it," Mangini said of getting fired by the Jets.
On bypassing Sanchez in the 2009 draft and effectively gift-wrapping him to the Jets, Mangini said, "There are real pluses to both sides [of the trade] and at that point, making a decision on a quarterback, I don't think would have been the best route to go."
As for trading Edwards, the coach said, "From my perspective, you want everybody to just continue to push in the right direction." He added, almost inaudibly, that Edwards did that "for the most part."
"Those were gutsy moves," Bowens said, "but we also have confidence in what we have here."
Mangini's inner confidence has no doubt rubbed off on his team. Players doused Mangini with Gatorade after the grudge win over Belichick.
"You love to make your coach proud," said receiver Chansi Stuckey, who came in the Edwards trade. "You know the game last week meant a lot to him and you know the game this week means a lot to him."
A win over the Jets could mean more than revenge or retribution for Mangini. It could be his watershed as Browns coach.