NFL History: How to win a Super Bowl

The choice to retain Eric Mangini as Head Coach has puzzled legions of Brown's fans. Our disappointment is driven by the fact that Mangini has yet to show the first signs that he is a coach capable to lead the Browns to a Super Bowl championship.

When searching for answers, The Brown Log likes to study history and NFL history is filled with lessons on how to win the ultimate contest so let's dig into Super Bowl history.

Analyzing how teams managed to win Super Bowls in the past, three distinctive approaches emerge:

1. Competence: The most common way to win a Super Bowl is competence. Simply stated, pick the best players and drive them to a Championship using standard strategies of that era. This approach requires judgement, leadership skills, planning and execution. The Green Bay Packers of the 1960's are a great example. Vince Lombardi filled his team with great athletes, and lead them to two Super Bowl wins.

2. Technical innovation: As the NFL has evolved the rule book over the last 40 years, a select few coaches deeply studied those changes and designed innovative new schemes that created additional advantages versus the rest of the league. Joe Gibb's Ace formation in Washington is one example of a new innovation. The Skins won 3 Super Bowls under Gibbs thanks in much part to this simple but innovative formation. Perhaps the best example of technical innovation is when Bill Walsh took Don Coryell's passing system and evolved it to what is today called the "West Coast Offense". Walsh's 49ers racked up three Super Bowl wins while the rest of the league caught up to them. Yet another example would be Bill Cowher, who recognized the potential in Dick Lebeau's innovative zone blitz scheme and unleashed it to counter the era's seemingly unstoppable passing games, bringing yet another Super Bowl win to our hated rivals in Pittsburgh.

3. Cheating: Bill Belichick proved dishonesty pays by implementing what many believe to be the most sophisticated cheating scheme in NFL history and leading the New England Patroits to 3 Super Bowl wins. Some NFL fans believe that "everyone cheats" thus the Pats cheating was justified, however rumor has it that New England went well beyond the normal gamesmanship of stealing signals. Some believe that the Patroits systematically filmed and studied opponents signals and used their knowledge of those signals in gameplans and playcalling, including the Super Bowl wins. The New York Times was alarmed and reported on the fact that the NFL destroyed all the film evidence of the Patroits cheating. The Times article clearly implies an NFL coverup, and in fact since their cheating was uncovered, the Patriots have not won another Super Bowl. No more talk of dynasty surrounds New England but they do get to retain their three Super Bowl rings.

Why does the Brown Log believe Mangini is the wrong man to coach our Browns? Simply stated, Mangini has not demonstrated competence in any area that NFL history shows will lead to a Super Bowl win.

Has Mangini chosen the right players? Hardly. His first move with the Browns was to trade key players because he did not like them personally. Maybe Braylon Edwards or Kellen Winslow are immmature kids, but they are playmakers. Mangini showed poor judgement in moving these talents out of Cleveland and those personel decisions stifled the Browns offense all season.

Has Mangini come up with innovative schemes? Running the ball 80% of the time was standard practice back when Red Grange and Jim Thorpe played in the NFL.

Has Mangini managed to successfully cheat, building on lessons learned working for Bill Belichick? Thankfully no although Mangini did rat out Belichick after he left the Patriots.

So what the hell was Mike Holmgren thinking when he retained Mangini?

We have to acknowledge that Mike Holmgren has won a Super Bowl and that accomplishment merits our respect.......... BUT WHY CHOOSE MANGINI????

The only conclusion The Brown Log can muster is that the young Mangini has not had the benefit of a senior mentor to guide him thus far in his career and Holmgren must have been impressed enough with Mangini to believe that under his guidance, Mangini can lead the Browns to a Super Bowl win. Based on Super Bowl history, Mangini however has yet to provide even the first clue that he is up to the challenge so unless Holmgren is planning to lead Mangini around by the nose, it's hard to imagine a Super Bowl win during the Mangini era.