FanHouse RomeoCrennel

This should count for something, right? Hall of Famer and Browns legend Jim Brown likes Eric Mangini. Pretty much everybody was in agreement that Romeo Crennel had to go after a four-win season (even if it was on the heels of a 10-6 effort in 2007).

The most popular choice for the gig? Bill Cowher, naturally. He was an assistant coach in Cleveland under Marty Schottenheimer back in the 1980s, and even though he was a head coach for 15 years in Pittsburgh, he won. And for the hapless Browns, winning trumps rivalry. Except that Cowher, for the second consecutive offseason, said he wasn't interested in an NFL coaching job.

Winning, as they say, solves everything. But while we wait for Eric Mangini to work his magic in Cleveland, it's perfectly reasonable to wonder what the hell he's doing. Last weekend, Mangini -- who replaced Romeo Crennel in January nine days after getting the Romeo Crennel treatment from the Jets -- thought it would be great fun to send the Browns rookies on a 10-hour bus ride to Hartford, Connecticut to work his football camp.

Also worth mentioning: Mangini flew from Cleveland to Hartford. It's one thing for Mangini to turn this into a "Hey, it's just like in Bull Durham" team-building exercise. It's something else entirely for a bus full of rookies to spend half a day making their way to Hartford while the head coach sips an apple martini in first class on his 90-minute flight.* (Mangini did slum it on the return trip to Cleveland and ride with the players, and who knows, maybe they watched Bull Durham.)

Perhaps the best way to ease a young NFL quarterback into the starting job is to surround him with playmakers, the support of a suffocating defense, or both. That way, he's seldom in the position of having to win a game, but has the benefit of gaining experience.

The strategy worked for the Steelers and Ben Roethlisberger in 2004, and the Ravens and Joe Flacco and the Falcons and Matt Ryan last season. Pittsburgh was 15-1, Baltimore and Atlanta were 11-5. It helps to have most of the pieces in place before handing over the offense to a young QB, but it's not mandatory; the Ravens won five times the year before Flacco arrived, and the Falcons won four.

Who moved to the head of the NFL class during the draft? Find out with FanHouse's team-by-team 2009 Draft Grades.

One year removed from a 10-win season, and on the heels of a four-win effort, owner Randy Lerner decided change was in order. He fired head coach Romeo Crennel and general manager Phil Savage and brought in Eric Mangini and George Kokonis.

If the first draft under the new leadership is any indication, the Browns will use the last weekend in April to restock the roster, and eschew high-priced, quick-fix free agents. The previous regime had a healthy mix of the two: Gary Baxter, Eric Steinbach, LeCharles Bentley and Donte' Stallworth were signed as free agents; Kamerion Wimbley, Joe Thomas and Brady Quinn were all high-round draft picks.

The Browns won four games last season. It cost Phil Savage and Romeo Crennel their jobs, and has led to an offseason full of speculation about whom the team will draft with the fifth-overall pick next Saturday.

Cleveland's collapse was mildly surprising; it won 10 games in 2007 and just missed the playoffs. With the quarterback position seemingly decided -- Derek Anderson went to the Pro Bowl in '07 -- only the defense needed fixing. Trading for Shaun Rogers and Corey Williams accomplished that (in theory, anyway) and all that remained was winning the Super Bowl.

Last Friday, a day after the Bears acquired Jay Cutler from the Broncos, the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Tony Grossi warned that Denver could still be in the Brady Quinn business, even though Chris Simms and Kyle Orton were now on its roster.

A year ago, Derek Anderson was coming off a Pro Bowl season and proved that he was an NFL starting quarterback in the process, if not for the Browns, then certainly somewhere. Now, after enduring a benching and a season-ending knee injury in 2008, his future seems much less certain.

The same can also be said about Cleveland's other quarterback, Brady Quinn, who was drafted in 2007 as the face of the franchise only to start just three games in two seasons. Earlier this week, the National Football Post's Mike Lombardi didn't rule out the possibility of the Browns drafting another quarterback this April.

Mike Tomlin is 36, just finished his second season as an NFL head coach, and all he's done is amass a 22-10 record and bring Pittsburgh its sixth Super Bowl championship, all while blazing a trail for young potential head coaching candidates who might be short on experience but long on leadership.

And the good news keeps on coming. The Pittsburgh Steelers, Tomlin's employer, are in the process of giving him a raise, even though he's only two years into a four-year deal. In general, the organization has a rule about new contracts: they're only re-worked in their last year. Perhaps that only applies to players, or maybe Dan Rooney is willing to make an exception in this case. Whatever, I don't imagine anybody thinks it's a bad idea.

Jets owner Woody Johnson was instrumental in bringing Brett Favre to New York last summer. And after a tumultuous 2008 season that included the head coach losing his job and some end-of-year locker room finger-pointing, he's still Favre's biggest adherent.

Johnson's been clear about wanting Favre to return for '09, although he admitted that, ultimately, it's not his decision to make. Which is probably nice to hear if you're new head coach Rex Ryan, who danced around the issue during his introductory press conference Wednesday.

Earlier today, MDS informed us that the Cleveland Browns are prepared to name Eric Mangini their new head coach, replacing Romeo Crennel. This comes just two days after reports surfaced that Mangini, who had not yet been named the Browns head coach, was already beginning to assemble his staff.

Well, tonight, NFL.com's Adam Schefter is reporting that Mangini -- who still hasn't officially been named the Browns head coach -- has named Rob Ryan as his defensive coordinator. Ryan had been the Raiders defensive coordinator since the 2004 season, and was apparently a favorite of owner Al Davis. During Ryan's tenure with the Raiders, their defense ranked 27th, 22nd, 3rd, 27th, and 30th, while he also had a less-than-stellar working relationship with former head coach Lane Kiffin.

He was also responsible for one of the best quotes of the season, when he informed the Oakland media that this is the "National F[reaking] Football League."