On several occasions this season, Browns coach Eric Mangini has been coy regarding whether his team’s starting quarterback will be Derek Anderson or Brady Quinn.
Mangini is doing it again.
And the suspense is killing us.
“I know where I’m headed, but we’ll talk about that on Wednesday,” Mangini said Monday. “I haven’t talked to the quarterbacks about it yet, so that’s part of it.”
The fact that Mangini is even playing this game is the best evidence of his delusion (but for, you know, his suggestion that there are “remarkable similarities” between the Browns and the Patriots). Both of his primary candidates for the job stink. Derek Anderson’s passer rating of 36.2 is lower than what it would be if every pass he threw simply struck the ground. Brady Quinn played just well enough to be benched after fewer than three games.
Now that Quinn has no chance of meeting the 70-percent play-time trigger necessary to drive up the salaries in the final two years of his deal by $10.9 million, Mangini might be ready to give the 2007 first-rounder another shot.
Regardless, the constant uncertainty can’t be helping either guy feel comfortable when he’s under center. And that’s why the new regime (or what’s left of it) should have picked Anderson or Quinn early in the offseason -- and gotten rid of the guy they didn’t want to keep.
And it’s also why the old regime should have had the courage to trade Anderson after the 2007 season, and to entrust the job to Quinn.
The starting quarterback, whoever it is, will have a national audience on Monday night, as the 1-7 Browns face the 4-4 Ravens in a game that ESPN surely wishes it hadn’t drawn.
