There’s a lot to like about the Browns’ signing of rookie free-agent center Mike Matthews of Texas A&M as they get set to begin their rookie minicamp next Friday through Sunday.

First of all, the Browns need a center after allowing Pro Bowler Alex Mack to walk in free agency. They’re going to give Cam Erving the first crack at the job, but does anyone really have any confidence in him after the horrific way he played last season as a rookie?

Perhaps Erving will snap out of it and start playing like a first-round NFL Draft pick should, but he’s going to have to prove it to me before I believe it.

But there’s more – much more, in fact – about the signing of Matthews that should cause you to smile.

Matthews is the son of Pro Football Hall of Fame offensive lineman Bruce Matthews, which, of course, means that he’s also the nephew of former Browns standout outside linebacker Clay Matthews.

It was in 2009 when first-year Browns head coach Eric Mangini, acting as his own general manager, bypassed Clay Matthews’ son, USC linebacker Clay Matthews III, three times in the first round even though the team was in desperate need of linebackers. Matthews was drafted at No. 26 by the Green Bay Packers, with whom he has blossomed into a great player.

Why would Mangini, who had spent several years with the original Browns in the early 1990s as both a low-level public assistant coach and a relations intern, not go with the Matthews bloodlines? In addition to Clay Jr. with the Browns and Bruce with the Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans, their father, Clay Sr., was an offensive lineman with the San Francisco 49ers in the early 1950s.

Why? Why? Why?

Because Mangini was so egotistical, so selfish, so stubborn, so power-hungry and so ignorant. That’s why?

Mangini knew that if he drafted Matthews, then he was going to have to listen to a steady diet of stories about his father and his iconic time with the Browns. And Mangini didn’t want that, for it would have taken the focus off him.

Remember, Mangini is the guy who, almost immediately upon being named head coach, ordered workers to paint over a neat mural of the Browns in the Hall of Fame that was near the entrance to the locker room at Browns Headquarters in Berea.

Mangini just isn’t a good person. Neither are Joe Banner, Mike Lombardi and Ray Farmer.

You can’t get those type of people out of your organization fast enough. How they ever got into the Browns organization in the first place is a huge indictment of owner Randy Lerner and Jimmy Haslam.