Rich McKay Will Not Be the Browns GM

Apparently, the name Eric Mangini makes high-profile GM candidates wet their pants in horror and turn in another direction that is as far away from Cleveland as possible.  Rich McKay, the president of the Atlanta Falcons, has withdrawn his name from the list of possible GM candidates, at his own choosing.  As this article states, McKay was once considered a “brand name” to bring into the front office – also included in that list was Scott Pioli, vice president of personnel for the New England Patriots, and Tom Heckert, the GM for the Philadelphia Eagles.  Pioli’s name has fallen by the wayside and Heckert has also recently withdrawn his name from the search.

Doesn’t exactly look good for the organization, does it?  Once Mangini became the official hire, we’ve seen these big-name candidates for the GM job suddenly say “Thanks, but I…uh…have…to…uh…what’s that Mr. Lerner?  I can hardly hear you, the phone’s breaking up.”  Even George Kokinis, the supposed second half of the package deal that came with Mangini, has begun to reconsider the Browns, remembering that his job in Baltimore does not lend himself to insane amounts of fan criticism.  At least not as much as he would be expecting as the general manager of the Browns, a team with fans so rabid and critical that it led to GM Phil Savage telling one particular fan to not only go root for the Bills, but for said fan to f*** himself.

So with literally every single candidate inching further and further away from Cleveland, who is left to consider?  According to Tony Grossi:

"Former Denver GM Ted Sundquist and Chris Polian, Colts vice president of football operations, may be potential candidates."

– In other news, I was reading the comments on the article linked above.  Someone referred to Eric Mangini as “Mangina” and I laughed heartily for quite some time.  If you’ve seen Step Brothers, then you’ll love this mangina-related sequence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24MLV7TGWrs