New York Jets fire Eric Mangini.

Absolutely. Considering Pennington's injury history and Favre's durability and his reputation as being a great cold weather quarterback, it's a move I would have made 10 times out of 10.

No one knew Pennington would not only stay healthy the entire season, but lead a downtrodden Miami team that was 1-15 last season to the playoffs as the AFC East champions. If anyone would have predicted that, I think he or she would have been asked to have his or her head examined.

So I'm not going to blame Mangini for releasing Pennington and signing Favre. I am going to blame him for the team going 1-4 in its last five games and for having a terrible year in 2007. I don't think I would have fired him personally, but I can understand why the Jets would.

As for Crennel, that was almost a must-fire situation. Marinelli, same thing, even though he's hardly to blame for the entirety of that Lions mess.

 

I will be very curious how long it takes Mangini and Marinelli to get another HC job. Crennel is probably considered too old for another team to take a chance on him.

I'm just waiting for Favre to start lobbying for the Jets to hire Mooch.

 

Didn't Mangini do something whacky like name his newborn after Favre?

 

Oddly enough, I think Marinelli gets another chance before Mangini.

 

Marinelli can never be hired as an NFL hc again.

 

I could see Mangini winding up somewhere like Oakland, not necessarily now, but in a year or two when four or five more Raiders head coaches have been fired.

Marinelli will go somewhere as a DC and if he does really well, could get another shot in a few years.

It will be interesting to see how much Mangini will be blackballed in the HC fraternity.

 

Interception Mangini turns one next August.

 

Outstanding.

 

Part of the problem in '07 is Mangini tried to shove players into roles they couldn't handle. Rather than adapt to his personnel until he could get the type of players he wanted on defense, he went with his defense despite not having the right players for it.

Look at what Mike Tomlin has done in Pittsburgh. He is one of Tony Dungy's guys. His entire pro coaching history was with a 4-3 front, playing primarily the Tampa 2 zone. Pittsburgh's defense was built for the 3-4 with Dick LeBeau's blitzing schemes. Tomlin was smart enough to keep LeBeau and go with the defensive approach that fit his personnel and he has been successful with that approach. You are starting to see his influence on the defense this year, but it is a mixture that takes advantage of the talent on the team.

Even this year, I have heard a lot of talk about Mangini not trusting his running game enough. I don't care who the quarterback is, that team was built to pound away on the ground and Mangini seemed to lose sight of that at times.

 

That's been the case from Day One. When he came in, the Jets had the defensive personnel to run a very good 4-3 scheme. (I believe) John Abraham, Jonathan Vilma. Those are guys that Mangini's defense could have been built around.

 

Weren't there issues with Abraham beyond the fact that he really belongs in a 4-3 and not a 3-4? I did think of Vilma. I always thought a 4-3 middle linebacker could adapt to play inside in a 3-4 given time.

 

He had broken down a couple times with the Jets