When I say Cleveland Browns head coach Eric Mangini is familiar with Kansas City Chiefs GM Scott Pioli, I mean it. Pioli was actually responsible for his former colleague's marriage.
Mangini recalled the night he met his wife. with Cleveland reporters yesterday. "Hey, do you want to come out," Mangini recalls Pioli saying. "I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll go out,’ and he said, ‘We’re going to meet my buddy’s sister and her girlfriends and look, you can talk to any of the girls, just don’t talk to my buddy’s sister.'"
Of course, Mangini talked with his buddy's sister all night and she would eventually end up becoming his wife.
Mangini was with Pioli throughout the majority of his entire career. In fact, the time he spent as coach of the New York Jets from 2006-08 was the first time in his career he was without Pioli.
"We lived together in New England when we first got there, myself and Jules (Mangini's wife) and him and Dallas (Pioli's wife), so I’ve known him for a long time," he said.
So, that's his relationship with Pioli. As for Haley, the two were together in New York back in the late 90s. Haley was an offensive assistant and Mangini a defensive assistant. Mangini recalled his time with Haley and had some nice words to say about him and his family.
"I know his dad really well, Dick Haley, who is arguably one of the best personnel men in the NFL," he said. "Just getting to know Todd and working in that same capacity, even though it was on the other side of the ball, he is really smart, very, I think, innovative."
Haley also recalled his time with Mangini in New York speaking to reporters yesterday.
"Eric and I have spent a lot of hours together in the building going way back," Haley said. "We were generally the last two in the building for a lot of years - sat next to each other in special teams meetings every day."