Eric Mangini Talks Baltimore Ravens Ahead of Sunday's Game

Cleveland Browns head Eric Mangini talks about the Baltimore Ravens game on Sunday September 27th.

Browns Head Coach Eric Mangini press conference 9-23-09

(Opening statement)- Good morning everybody. How are we doing? Were rolling on our preparation, following a typical Wednesday schedule. Obviously there are a lot of things to prepare for, as we move into Baltimore. I spent a year in Baltimore, the first season there. I have a lot of positive memories from that experience. That was the year with Ted (Marchibroda). It was quite an experience, to say the least. I met my wife there, got married there. I was there for that first draft where we drafted Jonathan Ogden and Ray Lewis. I actually was on the phone with New York in the draft room for those picks. Those were sort of exciting experiences as a young guy. Now looking at them, and Ive gotten to know John (Harbaugh) a little bit over the years, I think hes done an excellent job transitioning in to the head coaching role and just putting the whole team philosophy together. Ive known Steve Bisciotti over the years, just through my father-in-law Ron (Shapiro). He and Steve are friends. I really have a lot of respect for him as well.

In terms of getting prepared for the team itself, the defense, I think you have to start there. They have been dominant for years. They have some really special players. I remember Ray Lewis, the first practice that he practiced in OTAs, we had an older linebacker at that point who was kind of the alpha male. Typically, rookies come in and they defer to the alpha male, but not Ray. He took control from minute one and really hasnt let it go since and still makes impressive plays. He had that fourth down stop. However much time we have, you could list all the plays that hes made. You can look at a guy like Ed Reed who can ruin the game at any point from an offensive perspective. He has great instincts and he aggressively uses those instincts to make plays. Once he has the ball in his hands, hes an impressive returner. Theyll use him, from time-to-time, as a punt return and hes made plays there. You add the fact that hes a pretty special rusher when hes up on the line of scrimmage and hes rushing on their punt return teams, hes a guy you have to deal with there as well. You can keep going. Look at (Terrell) Suggs, (Trevor) Pryce, (Haloti) Ngata, (Jarret) Johnson. All those guys, I think, can make plays and work really well together, in terms of how they rush and coordinating the blitz packages that they have. I think (Dawan) Landrys done a really nice job as well. Hes a physical player. I remember we played him a couple years ago, two or three years ago, in New York and he was able to lay some pretty good sticks on different guys. There is a lot to be alert for there.

Offensively, Ive played against Cam (Cameron) a lot of different times. I really like his system. Its creative. It creates problems, in terms of adjustments. Hes patient enough to run the ball consistently. They ran the ball, Im pretty sure, the most of any team last year. They have a lot of people that can do that, with (Ray) Rice and (Willis) McGahee. Take your pick, they both can hurt you. Then you add Todd Heap to the mix, (Mark) Clayton, theres some weapons there. Even though its a younger offensive line, adding (Matt) Birk to that has helped solidify it. Obviously, (Joe) Flaccos development from last year to this year, hes continued to make improvements.

On special teams, Im sure the head coach has some input there. He was a tremendous special teams coach over the years. You can see some of his fingerprint there. Its a pretty solid fingerprint.

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Sports

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• Cleveland Browns
• NFL
• Baltimore Ravens
• Eric Mangini
• football
• press conference
• Cleveland Sports

[clevelandleader]

Sorry about the audio problems. My mic that was going to supplement Mangini the Mumbler died and was left with this...