Eric Mangini and the surprising Cleveland Browns have taken down the defending Super Bowl champions and Mangini’s mentor in the last two weeks. This week he has his sights set on the club that unceremoniously dumped him two years ago.
The Browns host the New York Jets, who are in search of a consistent offense and an eighth straight road victory on Sunday at Cleveland Browns Stadium.
Mangini and the Jets won’t be the only reunion Sunday. New York head coach Rex Ryan will battle wits with his twin brother Rob, the Browns’ defensive coordinator, for the third time in their careers but first with Rex as a head coach.
A highly respected assistant for Bill Belichick in New England, Mangini went 10-6 in his first season with the Jets in 2006. They slumped to 4-12 the next season and, after an 8-3 start with Brett Favre as his quarterback in 2008, they collapsed, missed the playoffs and Mangini was fired with a persona of being moody and a poor communicator.
His job in Cleveland has seemingly been on the line since the Browns brought in Mike Holmgren to run the show midway prior to this season, but Mangini has managed to survive thus far.
The Browns (3-5) have faced the toughest schedule in the NFL. They started the season 1-5 but had second-half leads in every loss except against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Oct. 17.
Cleveland beat New Orleans 30-17 three weeks ago and took a week off before pasting New England and Belichick 34-14 last Sunday to improve to 7-5 in their last 12 games.
The Browns recorded season highs in points, first downs (22), total yards (404) and time of possession (38:08) while holding the NFL’s highest-scoring offense in check last week.
Cleveland’s “Amoeba” defense, run by Rob Ryan, forced three turnovers and seemed to keep Pats quarterback Tom Brady off-balance all day.
While the Cleveland defense was confounding New England, Peyton Hillis rushed for a career-high 184 yards and two touchdowns, the most yards rushing against a Patriot defense in eight years.
Rookie Colt McCoy, who became the first quarterback in history to make his first three starts against Super-Bowl winning quarterbacks, completed 14 of 19 passes for 174 yards with no interceptions, and his 16-yard TD run in the third quarter gave the Browns a 24-7 lead.
Cleveland could be without linebacker Marcus Benard, who collapsed in the locker room Thursday. Benard, who leads the team in sacks with 4.5, was alert and sitting up when he was taken to the hospital for tests.
New York (6-2) was sailing into the Green Bay Packers game two weeks ago armed with one of the best running games and defenses in the league. Second-year quarterback Mark Sanchez was protecting the ball, throwing nine touchdowns against just two interceptions.
But the Jets were shut down 9-0 by Green Bay despite a 360-237 advantage in total offense. The difference in the game was three turnovers – two interceptions and a lost fumble - and 20 other incomplete passes in 38 attempts by Sanchez.
Last week against Detroit, the offense continued to sputter for over 3 ½ quarters before scoring 13 points on just 18 plays in the last 5 ½ minutes spanning the fourth quarter and overtime that pulled out a 23-20 victory.