For Browns, No. 3 can be best of all QBs

What I'll remember most about the Browns' 30-6 nightmare 11 days ago in Soldiers Field will be a pass play in the fourth quarter: Quarterback Derek Anderson, under siege in his end zone and trying to escape the rush, cocks his right arm and floats a pass nowhere near anybody wearing a Browns uniform.

Defensive back Charles Tillman dives for Anderson's floater, catches the ball while tumbling to the turf, scrambles to his feet and races toward the goal line. Tillman fends off tacklers along the way before rumbling into the end zone. It was another touchdown for the Bears, and another interception for Anderson.

More interesting to me, the pass was Anderson's last. Coach Eric Mangini, frustrated, pulled Anderson and replaced him with the prodigal son Brady Quinn.

It seems now as if Mangini's switch to Quinn will become permanent. He couldn't do worse than Anderson. For whatever else Anderson might be in life -- a good son, a solid citizen and a first-rate teammate -- he was a pathetic excuse for an NFL quarterback.

Look, Mangini could only trot out a disaster like Anderson for so long. At some point, the dour, dim-witted coach had to realize that a quarterback who ended a game with a QB rating of 10.5 wasn't good enough to stand behind center.

All of Anderson's performances this season had been noteworthy for their ineptitude, but his sorry play hit rock bottom against the Bears. In my mind, it was fool's thinking to keep using Anderson and then expect a better result.

To steal a few words from retired NFL coach Denny Green, Anderson was who I thought he was: a scatter-armed quarterback who couldn't hit the Gulf of Mexico if he stood on a dock in Key West, Fla.

I'm not, of course, an NFL coach; don't play one for TV either. What I am is someone who has watched and written about enough NFL games to know ineptitude when I see it. I have witnessed plenty of it while rooting for the Browns.

They have gone through more QBs than Madonna has gone through lovers. From Tim Couch to Trent Dilfer to Jeff Garcia to an endless line of others whose play fell below mediocre.

Browns fans have never made peace with mediocrity, despite the fact that's all they've witnessed since the team's rebirth a decade ago. They won't make peace with it now.

Their shouts to bench Anderson had been louder this week than they were in the bye week, and the tone-deaf Mangini couldn't ignore them.

Under ordinary circumstances, his decision would have been easier. He'd have let the job stay in Quinn's hands without much thought.

Quinn, no star in the marking, isn't the answer. He had opened the '09 season with the job, but he showed he didn't have the skills to hold on to it.

Did his skills somehow improve while tethered to the Browns bench? How much better is Quinn now?

Well, that's a separate question altogether, and the answer collides with a bigger concern for Mangini: using Quinn could end up costing the team $11 million in contract incentives.

On a team with more holes than a brick building in Baghdad, Mangini can't afford the salary-cap hit playing Quinn might cost the team. He won't do markedly better than Anderson, anyway. Peyton Manning, Drew Brees or Tom Brady might be unable to play well for this collection of talent Mangini has at his quarterback's disposal.

Quinn isn't Manning, Brees or Brady. He never will be. Neither will Anderson, which is the damnable part of it for Browns fans. They want better, but better was never going to come with Anderson at quarterback.

Nor with Brady Quinn.

After observing another dispiriting loss, Mangini should keep Quinn on the bench next to Anderson and put his faith in Brett Ratliff, the team's No. 3 QB. Ratliff's the horror show in orange and brown that nobody has seen yet.

Fans need to show Sanchez patience

It’s easy to fall in love with a mirage, because what you think you see in front of you with 20/20 clarity isn’t necessarily what you end up having when you cut to its core. No better example of that is Mark Sanchez, the rookie quarterback for the New York Jets. Three weeks ago, their fans were christening Sanchez as the second coming of Joe Namath, an icon in the Big Apple. Sanchez was the city's newest golden boy, a ready-for-the-pros passer with the Southern Cal pedigree. His play had taken the Jets to the summit of their division and made their fans forget the Bret Favre era. How handsome does the Favre era look today? Sanchez is now coming off three nightmarish performances, the kind that might make the film “Paranormal Activity” look G rated. His most recent start was one that only reminds NFL fans of the difficulty involved in jumping from the college game to the pros. The transition, however, has never been altogether seamless, a fact Sanchez discovered the hard way after a 16-13 loss Sunday to the Bills. He deserved the blame for it. Some people might not think it fair to saddle Sanchez with this loss. One player shouldn’t be blamed for what wrong against the Bills; other Jets must share the blame – a giant piece of it. But people can’t have it two ways. If they want to credit Sanchez for a 3-0 start, they have to cite his play for the team's 3-3 record today. Surely, they have little choice but to do so in the loss Sunday. For he never found answers to the defensive schemes the Bills threw in front of him. Under pressure time and again, Sanchez hurried his passes (10 of 29 for 119 yards) and missed open receivers throughout the game. At game’s end, he had thrown five interceptions, the last of which led to a game-winning field goal in overtime. Sanchez had a game that should lead to restless nights. He’ll see Bills dancing in his dreams for the rest of this week – and maybe next week, too. It would be hard to forget five interceptions. After a game like this, Sanchez has to harbor doubts. So must Jets fans. Their euphoria has been tempered. They must look at Sanchez for what he is: a work in progress. Few quarterbacks can step off a college campus and into a starting job in the NFL. Some men need years to transition into a polished product. Just ask Brady Quinn, J.P. Losman, Tim Couch, Vince Young, Kyle Boller, Rex Grossman, Byron Leftwich, Alex Smith, Matt Leinart or Joey Harrington. They all entered the NFL with much fanfare, but their careers have been unimpressive, more the careers of a journeyman than of a No. 1 pick. Their struggles offer sage lessons. A strong arm doesn’t ensure a distinguished career. Playing quarterback in the NFL is a mind game as much as anything else. It demands a quarterback have the ability to read defenses, to think on his feet and to remain cool in the face of pressure – from opposing linemen and from critics. Sanchez will be hearing plenty from the critics this week, as all quarterbacks do after a lousy performance. Think this is journalistic hyperbole? Well, just listen to the howls coming out of Philadelphia after Donovan McNabb’s horrible display Sunday against the then winless Oakland Raiders. Rex Ryan, a first-year head coach, is unlikely to bench Sanchez. But if Ryan had expected according-to-Hoyle performances from his rookie each week, he was asking for miracles. He will have to show more patience with his gifted pupil than Jets fans will. For Ryan must believe that all the good things Sanchez did in his first three starts weren’t illusions but snapshots of what he can do with more experience.