Browns beat Bills, 6-3
October 11th, 2009 at 10:24 pm by Displaced Cleveland Fan
In a thrilling shoot-out, Derek Anderson led the high-powered Browns offense over the Buffalo Bills in a game for the ages.
OK. That’s not exactly what happened. Not at all. Actually, the only part that’s right is that the Browns won.
Yes. Really. The Browns managed to beat another team in an actual game.
It’s not like they didn’t try to lose the game. Buffalo just wouldn’t take it. Then it looked like they would play for the tie, but the Bills would have none of that. A fumble on a punt return gave the Browns the ball back at Buffalo’s 16 yard line. Even Cleveland couldn’t blow this chance. They couldn’t get in the end zone. But the Browns did manage to kick a field goal for the 6-3 win.
The Browns really won this game in large part to the effort of punter Dave Zastudil. He was able to land seven punts inside the 20 yard line to pin the Bills’ mediocre offense near their own end zone.
Jamal Lewis had a good game running the football, rushing for 117 yards on 31 carries. He didn’t get into the end zone, but then again, neither did anyone else in this game.
The Browns defense held the Bills to 3 points. That’s good too, right?
OK. Here’s what’s not good - Derek Anderson. DA was just 2 for 17 throwing the football (11.7%) for a total of 23 yards and an interception. He had a QB rating of 15.1 for the game.
After last week’s overtime loss to Cincinnati, I almost, almost, tried to convince myself that the Browns really should let Anderson start. But this game has brought me back to my senses. Anderson is not a starting QB. The Browns should have lost this game. They only won because Buffalo wanted to lose worse than the Browns.
Is this going to spark another quarterback controversy in Cleveland? Who knows. Really, I doubt Eric Mangini will bench DA for Brady Quinn after this terrible performance. Another one next week, then maybe. He’s at least got to make sure DA gets more than 30% of the snaps. But I’d be surprised if Anderson loses the starting job this week. But it needs to happen. DA is not the quarterback for this team after this season. Quinn, who knows? But we at least need to give him more than 10 quarters to see what he can do.
Even if Brady Quinn isn’t the answer, start Josh Cribbs at QB. He’d be an improvement over Anderson.
-dcf
Tags: Brady Quinn, Buffalo Bills, Cleveland Browns, Dave Zastudil, Derek Anderson, Eric Mangini, Josh Cribbs
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