Read the debate intro and Sports Geek’s argument that Mangini’s secrecy about naming the starting quarterback had no impact on the game.
Before Eric Mangini became head coach of the Cleveland Browns, and before he was head coach of the New York Jets, he was a member of New England head coach Bill Belichick’s staff. First, the two worked together in New York for the Jets. When Belichick was hired by the Patriots, he brought in Mangini. Obviously, Mangini’s coaching style and persona was somewhat influenced by Belichick, who is infamous for his secrecy on various football issues, such as the injury report. You can bet that Mangini learned every way to gain an advantage on an opponent from his former mentor, even if the two do not necessarily get along these days. Withholding the name of the player who was going to start at quarterback against the Vikings for an extended period of time was a coaching tactic that definitely had an impact on the game. Was it going to be Derek Anderson or Brady Quinn? That is what Cleveland Browns fans wanted to know, and for a little while, that is what the Minnesota Vikings wanted to know.
First off, we must ignore the fact that Minnesota won the game 34-20. Obviously, Minnesota is the better team. No one is disputing that and probably would not dispute it no matter who lined up under center.
However, Mangini did give us his young team a much better chance of winning by keeping the news of who would be starter quiet for an extended period of time. Minnesota has one of the top defenses in the league and the Browns needed every advantage they could get.
In the National Football League, game plans are usually given to the players the first part of the week. In this particular situation, there was probably two separate game plans given to the players: one if Brady Quinn is named starter and one if Derek Anderson is named starter. Through studying game film, Vikings coaches noticed tendencies by both quarterbacks and developed game plans to attack the weaknesses of each individual. Not so coincidentally, news leaked out that Quinn would be named the starter late Tuesday night. By this time, coaches had spent hours preparing for both. Would the Vikings-Browns game have been closer if they had spent the entire week on just Quinn?
Do not forget that Cleveland led the game 13-10 at the half. That leads me to believe that the move by Mangini had some impact. Perhaps Quinn did some things that the Vikings were not totally prepared for because of the lack of time spent solely focusing on Quinn. The Vikings were able to make some adjustments at halftime, and thus thoroughly dominated the Browns in the second half by only giving up a field goal and a late “garbage” time touchdown.
Like I said before, the Vikings are the better team. They are the defending NFC North champions and expected to repeat. That is all the more reason for Mangini to establish any type of advantage he could get. The move bought the Browns some time and helped them compete for a half. The advantage goes to Mangini!
