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Eric Mangini Shares His Secrets on How to Beat the Patriots

Former Cleveland Browns head coach Eric Mangini may have only led his team to a 5-11 season, but he was able to defeat the New England Patriots 34-14 on Nov. 7.

The Browns were one of two teams – the New York Jets the other – to beat the Patriots, and Mangini recently revealed to the New York Post how to beat the Patriots. He even wrote the article.

He recognizes that the Patriots thrive on taking advantage of other team’s mistakes, citing it as one of the team’s most obvious and important strengths.

“The Patriots are the best team at not beating themselves,” he writes “What’s often overlooked is the fact that most games in the league are lost, not won.”

Not only that, Mangini also notes that the Patriots’ ability to prey on the weaknesses of their opponents is also among the long list of reasons that make the Pats so good.

“The Patriots always are going to find the opponents’ strength and attack it. They always are going to work to make you play left-handed. It’s like: ‘If this is your greatest strength, we’re going to take that away. If you beat us with your second or third thing, fine, but you’re not going to beat us with the thing you do best.’”

He even reveals that the Jets hired coaches and drafted players to try to beat the Patriots.

“We drafted to try to beat the Patriots, because if you can’t beat them you can’t win the division. The reason we drafted Nick Mangold was because we needed a center to hold up against the nose guard, which is the driving force in a 3-4 defense, especially for an inside running game. We drafted Mangold to battle Patriots nose tackle Vince Wilfork.”

Although Mangini only has a 33-48 coaching record, he’s been able to defeat the Patriots. Aside from the Nov. 7 victory, he coached the Jets to a victory against the Patriots in 2006 – the last time Tom Brady lost a regular season game at home.

However, Mangini is currently jobless after his recent firing from the Browns.