Solid D + Late TD = Ugly W

You hardly know what to make of a win that looked much like a loss, but if you’re somebody who cheers for the Cleveland Browns, you’ll settle for a 6-3 victory regardless of how ugly it looked.

Think about it: The Browns had been rolling nightmarishly toward a futility that would match what the Detroit Lions did a season ago. Sixteen losses, although hardly guaranteed, did seem reachable, and coach Eric Mangini and the Browns did nothing Sunday to suggest they could win a game.

They dropped passes, slogged around in the wind and, essentially, played as if it were an exhibition game. One thing that helped the Browns was a Buffalo Bills team that couldn’t get out of its way. The Bills stumbled and false-started from the opening whistle to the game’s end.

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All Around the Big City

So as we wait for the Yankees to get ready for the playoffs, the Mets to end their season, and the Jets and Giants to get ready for their next opponents, here’s a few thoughts to that crossed my mind:

-- Does anybody miss Eric Mangini? Really, the effort his Cleveland Browns put up Sunday in a 34-3 loss to Baltimore was pathetic. His team is winless, and the quarterback situation is still a mess. Meanwhile, the Jets are 3-0, the defense is vastly improved from a year ago and Rex Ryan looks like he’s a better coach than his old man. Miss Mangini? Don’t think so.

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Mangini's Browns Not Any Better

It might not matter who coaches the Cleveland Browns these days, because the coach has absolutely nothing to work with. The team was closer to being decent when it returned to town 10 years ago than it is today.

This second incarnation of the Browns, a franchise the NFL recreated from scraps after Art Modell spirited the original off to Baltimore in 1995, hasn’t been much to talk about. Nor is the team’s most recent performance: a 27-6 loss Sunday to the Broncos.

Losing to the Broncos is not unusual; those old Browns did so with regularity. But at least they routinely made a game of things in Denver; at least they went onto the field and looked like a polished NFL team.

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Quinn or Anderson? Pick One, Mangini

Eric Mangini must be out of his mind.

Now, I'm not trying to tell the man how to coach the Browns. He's got the credentials for that job; I don't. But it doesn't take a doctorate in the art of football to figure out it's wiser to make a decision now rather than later.

The decision that people in Cleveland await is the one Mangini has to make about who will be his starting quarterback. Since training camp opened in July, he's juggled Brady Quinn and Derek Anderson like a clown does tennis balls. Neither man has a sense of what the coach is looking for in this quarterback derby. Nor do Browns fans.

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