Many believed the arrival of new team president Mike Holmgren in Cleveland during the offseason meant the end of the tenure of coach Eric Mangini.

That didn’t happen. At least not for this season.

Mangini remained in place following a 5-11 record, and in his foray into upper management Holmgren has said one of his challenges is to stay out of the way of his coach. Holmgren told reporters Wednesday he wouldn’t have taken the job if he didn’t believe in his head coach, and told NFL Network he made a promise to Mangini as well.

“I made some promises to Eric, and he made some promises to me,” Holmgren told Rich Eisen.”My promise to him was that I was going to help him in any way I could be the best coach he could be. My role has changed. I’ve been coaching a long time, and been on the field a long time. To say it will be easy, and to say I won’t be churning a little bit at times, I don’t think that’s being totally honest.

“But I’m not coaching this football team. I’m trying to help the coach develop the football team, and he’s doing the other part of it. If I’m being honest with him, and I intend to be, that was the setup going in.”

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