REPORT: BRADY QUINN TO BE NAMED BROWNS’ STARTING QB

In the era of 24 hour television and Internet sports media, it’s very hard for a NFL coach to keep a secret.  Despite Cleveland Browns’ coach Eric Mangini’s insistence that he wasn’t going to reveal the identity of his starting quarterback in advance of the team’s NFL season opening game against the Minnesota Vikings, hard working ‘beat’ writers for the team now think they know the identity of his top signal caller.  Unnamed sources within the organization and the observations of the media suggest that Brady Quinn will get the nod as the Browns’ starting quarterback.

Mangini has already told his players who will start at quarterback, but has declined to make it official with a public statement in hopes of getting a ‘competitive advantage’ over the Vikings.  On Friday, however, Quinn worked with the first team offense during the beginning of practice.  The fact that this was the time open to the media suggests that Mangini is going to a lot of trouble to perpetuate a ruse, or else he’s not that concerned about keeping the identity of his starter a secret.

After the Browns’ final preseason game—and with most other NFL coaches making their personnel decisions official—Mangini went public with the announcement that there would be no official confirmation of his decision:

"In terms of announcing it publicly, that's not something I plan to do. It will be internal. I understand everybody has a different opinion on it. I respect that. I understand the excitement in relationship to that and I respect that as well. But that will be something that will be internal."

Mangini insisted that this was a bit of gamesmanship to make the Vikings’ job of preparation all the more difficult:

"It is more difficult to plan for two quarterbacks than it is to plan for one. I'm not saying that's going to be the difference or not the difference, but I know that there is time allotted to that and you can't put the same amount of time into focusing on one player."

If the Vikings’ Brad Childress is having difficulty preparing his team for a specific quarterback he sure didn’t indicate that with his statement in response:

 "Just schematically, you're going to go back and look at tape and see what you've seen. And then I know, as do our guys, that there will be unscouted looks. They certainly haven't showed their whole hand, offensively and defensively. So you're just going back and looking at formation-wise where they're putting people and what kind of players they are. It will be more about us deploying to what they do."

Quinn was the Browns’ starter at the beginning of the 2008 NFL season until he was sidelined with a finger injury.  Derek Anderson took over the rest of the way, but will begin the 2009 campaign as Quinn’s backup.  Mangini has repeatedly stressed that he’s happy with both of his options at quarterback:

"I have been happy with the progress that both guys made. I'm happy with the way they've worked. I'm happy with the way they approached this competition, and it's not always easy to approach a competition in a team fashion, and I respect the way they've handled it."

After hosting the Vikings in their opening game of the 2009 NFL regular season, Cleveland will hit the road for their next two games, playing the Denver Broncos on September 20th and the Baltimore Ravens the following Sunday.  The Browns are a +4 home underdog for their opening game against Minnesota with the total set at 40.