Defensive coordinator Eric Mangini addresses the media for the first time since his promotion, and fields plenty of questions.

01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, August 31, 2005

BY SHALISE MANZA YOUNG
Journal Sports Writer

FOXBORO -- The baby-faced rookie defensive coordinator of the New England Patriots has always been a student of the game, and he expects his students -- the players -- to get A-pluses, as well.

Eric Mangini is something of a football savant. Just 34 years old, Mangini was elevated to Patriots defensive coordinator this season after Romeo Crennel moved on to become head coach of the Cleveland Browns.

Mangini's ascension to coordinator for the three-time Super Bowl champions has been faster than The Bad News Bears left your local megaplex. A dozen years ago, while still in college, he was coaching a semi-pro mishmash of young and old -- blue-collar and white-collar men playing American football in Australia for the Kew Colts.

Now, he's charged with leading one of the most dynamic defensive units in the National Football League on a team looking to do what no other has -- win three straight Super Bowls.

Mangini addressed the media yesterday for the first time since his promotion, fielding questions about the status of the defense, how he feels his transition from secondary coach to defensive coordinator has gone so far, and how he is similar to and different from Crennel.

For linebacker Rosevelt Colvin,

the difference is obvious.

"Mangini is the white guy, RAC is black," he joked, then added, "If Bill (Belichick) didn't have confidence in him, then he wouldn't be up there, so regardless of if it's RAC or Mangini calling the defensive plays, we have to go out there and execute it."

Linebacker Don Davis, who became a member of Mangini's secondary last season when injuries hurt that unit and Davis moved back to safety, said he's noticed a few things about Mangini -- most notably that he wants his players to know everything that happens and is supposed to happen on the defensive side of the ball.

"They both are very mellow; they're not screamers. That's a similarity" between Mangini and Crennel, he said. "They're different in the sense that Eric tends to really go into a lot of detail, whereas RAC tends to put it on the assistants to go into the detail, so I think that might be a little more of a difference. And, you know, I think (since it is) Mangini's first year -- and RAC could have been like this his first year, I'm not sure -- but he makes sure everybody knows (everything). He'll ask questions to a linebacker that's a safety question, or to a safety that's a D-line question. So he wants everybody to know what everyone else is doing. He's a little more detail-oriented."

In his coaching tenure, Mangini has been able to study some of the best minds in the sport: Belichick, who gave Mangini his first job in the NFL, as a coaches' assistant with Cleveland when Belichick was in his final season coaching the Browns (1995); Bill Parcells, who was the head coach of the Jets when Belichick landed there as assistant head coach after Cleveland; and Crennel.

But it is Belichick he clearly most resembles and respects.

After the 2003 season, Mangini was offered the defensive coordinator's job with the Oakland Raiders, and before this season he was offered that job by both the Miami Dolphins (where Belichick's friend, Nick Saban, is the new head coach) and Crennel's Browns, and also had interest from San Francisco. But he accepted New England's offer despite the fact that Miami and Cleveland reportedly offered him more money.

Being comfortable has been beneficial for all involved. For Mangini, he remained in a system he's been part of for five years, and for the players, not much has changed, either.

"Being with Bill for a long time has definitely helped, as opposed to going to a completely new scheme or a new person," Mangini said. "Seeing some of the things that we've seen together and being able to reference past experiences definitely helps us as we move forward and as we make changes and build on the defense."

Davis said the transition has been easy.

"You always want to go with a guy who's been around, who knows the system, who knows the players, as opposed to some guy that you just grab," Davis said. "No matter how good he is, when he comes in, he's not really familiar with how you do things."

Safety Rodney Harrison didn't want to compare Mangini and Crennel.

"I won't talk about the difference. Eric is our defensive coordinator; Romeo is a head coach," said Harrison, adding that it doesn't matter what coaching style Mangini has.

"Who cares? Even if I hated Eric's style, I still have to deal with it. So who cares about the difference? It doesn't matter. Romeo has moved on, Eric is our defensive coordinator, and we have to deal with Eric. We like Eric, we respect Eric. He's open-minded, he's a smart, innovative guy and we have a lot of respect for him. A lot of coaches think they know it all and they're closed-minded, but I respect the fact that Eric is open-minded."

Class is in session, and Mangini has a hefty set of expectations for himself and the players.