Down and Out

I was very excited to hear the big announcement this week that Brady Quinn is finally getting the start in Cleveland for the Browns. I was not excited to find out that it would take place on one of those awful Thursday night games that you can only see on the NFL network. I refuse to pay an extra $5.99 a month to watch another channel of sports talk with an occasional Thursday night dud.

Anyway, I find it very interesting to hear the media reaction to the decision. Almost universally, it was considered a quick trigger. A bad decision, bordering on desperate by the Browns. A short week is supposedly an awful time to make the switch for a new QB. The comment that bothers me the most is that the Browns failure is not Anderson's fault. Too many dropped passes by the receivers are to blame for Anderson's poor stats.

Is anybody else as incredulous as I am? Since when has a poorly performing QB on an underachieving team been considered good? I checked the stats. Derek Anderson is rated 31st in the league in passer rating. That's behind such luminaries as JaMarcus Russell, Joe Flacco, Dan Orlovsky and Gus Frerotte. Only 2 teams have a worse QB than Cleveland, KC and Seattle. Look, I understand a few dropped passes can make a QB look bad, but they don't give him a 68.9 QB rating! They surely don't give him a 49.8% completion rate. That is just not up to standards for an NFL QB.

I just don't get it. Quinn has been in competition for the starting spot since he signed. You would think Anderson had to perform better to keep his spot. Yet, the worse he plays, the more excuses arise. This switch has been brewing for over a year, so why is it a quick trigger now?

The only answer to these questions I can come up with is that people hate Brady Quinn. It was there in college, it was there at the draft, it was there during his contract negotiations, and it continues today. For the life of me, I'll never understand. He has never been anything but an exemplary person. He works hard, never gets into trouble, is a great teammate as a starter or on the bench, succeeds at every level so far... People just love to hate him.

I hope he kicks butt tomorrow and begins a great NFL career. Unfortunately, anything less than the second coming of Joe Montana or Tom Brady will be considered a letdown by the same people who continue to put him down. I don't see that for Quinn, so I guess I should get used to the criticism that will follow him throughout his career.