Yeah He took a team that hadn't been to the playoffs in almost a decade and had rebuilt them and was in the Playoffs two of his three years there. Then Tanny and Woody forced Bret Favre on him and Tanny just let Pennington the backup go as a waiver wire cut, over his objection.
When Favre got hurt, there was no QB backup thanks to Tannenbaum.
He ended up the fall guy in the battle to blow Woody best; and got run out of town, for the Favre fiasco which he didn't want, in the first place. Woody deserves Tannenbaum and his talent non-evaluation. Ghosn anyone?
The Cleveland owner has been taking lessons from Snyder of the Redskins. He gives everyone two years and then loses patience, intrudes, fires them, to start over. Meanwhile Ratgini beat the current World Champs and the Patriots with a rebuilding team with out a QB.
Mangini is a talented Coach. That is what Belichick knew when he appointed him his DC. He is, and remains a fairly good coach, who disregarded Belichick's advice about the diseased Jests. But then Belichick also went to work for them, only to see the errors of his ways. Tannenbaum was the one who instigated the Spygate nonsense, with his buddy Jetdell, as well.
I would not be surprised to see Belichick and Mangini reconcile; and Belichick lets him rejoin his staff.
As much as I dislike Mangini, I agree with your assessment of his time with the NYJ, though he did only get the team to the playoffs once, in his first year. He might have eventually done well there, but he was made the scapegoat for the failure of the Favre experiment.
I disagree with his involvement in the start of the spygate saga. In an article in ESPN the Magazine, Mangini said one of his errors was trying to control every aspect of the team when he was in NY. Nothing happened there without his knowledge or approval
With that in mind, it's difficult to believe that Mangini wasn't aware of the plan of grab Estrella and his camera during week one of the 2007 season. Tannenbaum may have ramped things up more, but I don't think he could have acted without Mangini's knowledge.
In addition, another poster, possibly Joker, has frequently cited a mention in one of the NY papers in the week before the Patriots-Jets opener of Mangini meeting with Goodell. One of the reasons why the sideline taping story blew up was that NFL security there from the start, instead of just Jets personnel. It wasn't like the Alosi situation, where the league let the team handle things and then came in later.
Without hearing Mangini confirm all the details, it's circumstantial. But, with what we have to go on, I believe Mangini had to know about that plan and worked with the NFL to get their people involved.
As far as Mangini's future, would taking a year off or taking an assistant's job be such a terrible thing? This might give him a chance to reflect on what went wrong with his first two head coaching jobs and what he can improve on if he gets another chance. I just don't see how getting fired twice in 3 years makes him attractive for another job as a head coach, even on the college level.
