Can Brady Quinn ignite Cleveland's anemic offense?
Eric Mangini is flip-flopping quarterbacks again.
According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, it’s likely that Brady Quinn will re-assume starting duties under center when Cleveland faces the Ravens in Baltimore on Monday night.
Quinn started the first three games for the Browns, and he wasn’t exactly pitiful, completing 60.8% of his passes for 409 yards, with one touchdown and three interceptions.
Mangini yanked Quinn at halftime in Week 3 against the Ravens in favor of former starter Derek Anderson, and despite the fact that Anderson threw three interceptions against the Ravens and produced all of three points (three more than Quinn did, to be somewhat fair), Mangini named him the starter for Week 4’s game against Cincinnati.
Since a half-decent performance in an overtime loss to the Bengals, the results have been absolutely dreadful. As bad as that 2 for 17 performance against the Bills was, it hasn’t gotten any better since.
After completing 26 of 48 passes for 269 yards against the Bengals in Week 4, Anderson has completed just a third of his passes in his last four starts, going 29 of 87 for 320 yards, with one touchdown and five interceptions.
As ineffective as Mangini thought that Quinn was, his numbers look like MVP numbers compared to what Anderson has produced over the last few weeks.
[insert the whole part about hindsight being 20/20 and all that, yada yada]
Quinn might not be the long-term solution, or even the short-term one, but solely from a statistical standpoint, he’s a far better option than Anderson at this point. Frankly, sticking Josh Cribbs back there might be the best option, but I digress.
On a serious note though, if Mangini does indeed hand over starting duties to Quinn again, he needs to stick with his decision - not least because he can actually, you know, complete more than half of his passes. A lack of production on the field is one thing, but you can’t expect to have any continuity on and off of it when there are major question marks about who‘s going to be leading the offense week in, week out.
Of course, there’s only so much production you can expect when your running game isn’t producing consistently and when you’re seriously lacking playmakers, but Quinn deserves the fullest opportunity to show that he can lead the Browns to points, if not wins.
