Tuesday AM Aug. 18: Mangini lets loose

After a mistake-filled 17-0 preseason-opening loss at Green Bay and two equally poor practices, Browns coach Eric Mangini blasted his team for continually "bad football" during the dog days of training camp.

"It's difficult for everybody around the league, everybody is tired and is experiencing the same thing," Mangini said. "The important thing is whether or not you can continue to function effectively and get better at practice.

"I thought the morning practice was OK, not great. I thought the situational awareness was OK, not great. It's just not good enough, too many mistakes. We had too many mistakes in the two-minute drive, a false start on fourth-and-2, a false start when we were backed up. Things like that are just going to kill you. They're going to kill us."

Asked if he thought the Browns were waiting for him to give them a break or perhaps needed some comic relief, Mangini let loose with his strongest statement since he took over.

"They can watch practice and get comic relief," he said. "They can yuk it up over that. We practiced without pads today. It was relief."

Speaking in the break between Tuesday's two practices, Mangini was particularly distraught over back-to-backs plays in the two-minute drill on the final series of the morning session. The situation was a 17-17 tie with 50 seconds left and two timeouts remaining.

When Brady Quinn was at quarterback, he got only one snap. His pass for Braylon Edwards was picked off by cornerback Brandon McDonald, who returned it for a touchdown. Edwards and Quinn talked afterwards and Edwards later called it a "miscommunication."

When Derek Anderson got his chance, he began with an 8-yard pass to Brian Robiskie that did not stop the clock. Then the Browns were flagged for a false start (no penalty lap was run to designate the offender), requiring a timeout with 24 seconds to go. That was followed by a delay of game penalty. On third down, Noah Herron ran for seven yards and the Browns punted.

Asked how those two penalties could happen, Mangini said, "That's a great question. I asked the same thing because it shouldn't happen. You had the false start and you had the timeout because the clock is
running, so you've got to use the timeout to avoid the 10-second runoff. You go to the sideline, you call a play and you come out and run the play. It shouldn't happen. Shouldn't happen."

Play of the day: Amist the mess, Edwards did pull in a nice 30-yard catch, reaching over cornerback Corey Ivy on the sideline. Edwards looked back to the official to make sure he was ruled inbounds.

Who's not practicing: Shaun Rogers, David Bowens, Ryan Tucker, Jerome Harrison and David Patten were riding the exercise bikes.

Roster move: Free agent running back Chris Jennings, 5-10 and 218 pounds, was signed and linebacker Phillip Hunt was waived. Jennings, who grew up in Ashland, Ky. and attended the University of Arizona, spent some time with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League.

Who's visiting: Former Browns assistant coach Dan Radakovich (1989-90), one year into retirement at age 74. Radakovich has several ties in Cleveland — quarterbacks coach Carl Smith was a graduate assistant under him at the University of Colorado, special teams coach Brad Seely served in the same capacity at N.C. State (1982) and strength coach Tom Myslinski and center Hank Fraley were with him at Robert Morris. Radakovich is writing a book on his football experiences, which includes some stories of his days under coach Bud Carson.

Blackout averted: Although about 5,000 remained for Saturday's home game against Detroit, the Browns and WKYC-Channel 3 bought the remainder to ensure it would be televised locally. The blackout deadline had been Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. and Channel 3 had already decided against running it on tape delay. That would have meant that the only fans in Northeast Ohio who would have seen the game would have been those with the NFL Network, and it would have been the Lions' feed.