The Numbing Sameness of It All, Again---Bears Edition

The temptation, of course, is to slap a new headline on last week’s story and call it a day.  That’s basically what the Cleveland Browns did on Sunday, losing in inglorious fashion once again, this time to the Chicago Bears, 38-31.

There wasn't anything particularly new to report, the details of this particular loss irrelevant.  Suffice it to say that the Browns blew a lead as the defense collapsed. Gee, when have I written that before?  Oh year, nearly every freakin' week.

So if the manner in which the team lose is irrelevant was there anything of relevance to ponder?  Yes.  If you’re looking for meaning in a cold city with a cold stadium and an even colder season then it is that this team continues to lose, that it continues to lose with such regularity in fact that it is threatening to undermine whatever fan base remains.

Watching the Browns lose again on Sunday in much the same manner as their other 10 losses this season, I wondered whether even the players get bored losing in the same way each week.  Either they have the deepest reservoir for absorbing boredom imaginable or they aren't bored at all.  No matter.  They are, sadly, still losers.

A defensive collapse by this team isn't news this season or any season.  It’s just what they do irrespective of the players, irrespective of the coaches, irrespective, really, of who they are playing. Maybe losing like this is habit forming as D’Qwell Jackson suggested after the game.  Maybe it just doesn't matter.  When you’re playing out another string in another meaningless season does the manner in which your next loss happens really matter?  It does but only if you’re earnestly trying to improve.

Feel free to make the case that this Browns team isn't the worst team the front office has put on the field in recent years. I’ll readily concede that this team seems more talented than in previous seasons as long as you readily concede that your point notwithstanding the results still aren't any different.  That is the numbing sameness of it all in a nutshell.

The problem with this team since its reintroduction into the league until this past Sunday starts with the quarterback and flows from there.  It’s almost hard to fathom that the Browns are no closer to having a good serviceable quarterback than at this same point during its first in 1999.  That is institutional incompetence as practiced at the highest level of professional sports.

Without a quarterback that the team or the fans can believe it, there's little to rally around.  A strong defense can win you a few games.  Perhaps your hack quarterback can do likewise occasionally.  But there is no end game except the unfulfilled belief in the results of next year's draft.

In Sunday’s New York Times sports section there was an article pondering whether the Jets, whom the Browns play this coming Sunday, will follow the same path of the Carolina Panthers and once again try to draft a franchise quarterback.  The Panthers, as most recall, drafted Jimmy Clausen late in the first round in 2011 only to watch him perform like a baby-faced Brandon Weeden.  In 2012 they conceded their mistake just one season into the experiment and drafted Cam Newton and now find themselves, in Newton’s second season, as one of the better teams in the NFL.  In doing that they did what most teams won't even contemplate—cutting losses instead of grasping to the thin reed of the potential you saw in the player when you first drafted him.  NFL quarterback may be the toughest position in professional sports but that doesn't mean that conclusions can't be drawn after a season.

This past season the Jets drafted Geno Smith in the second round.  He’s been awful in the way that only an unprepared rookie quarterback could be awful.  Think Akili Smith and you’you've essentially captured the awfulness of Geno Smith.  The Jets face the issue of whether to cut bait with Smith, just like the Panthers did with Clausen.

The Browns of course faced this issue last off season and punted, which is why Weeden started the season.  Now deep into Weeden's second season, there can’t be anyone in Berea that believes he’s a viable, reliable NFL starter.  The game just hasn’t slowed down enough for Weeden and who knows if it ever will.  Meanwhile the Browns continue to have a quarterback problem and they need to continue to turn over every rock, spend every high draft choice they have, until one is found.   Quit using hope as a strategy.

The Browns don’t need a “franchise” quarterback, for whatever that even means at this point.  They just need a guy who can consistently and efficiently manage a game, minimize mistakes and get the ball where it needs to be.  Maybe that is asking a lot. No matter.  Until that quarterback is found, the Browns will remain stuck on 4 to 5 wins a season.

Look at it this way.  In their 15th season since re-entering the league, the Browns are averaging just over 5 wins a season.  The franchise has had just two winning seasons overall.  The common denominator is the lack of a quarterback.  The correlation is near perfect.

Which brings us back to Sunday’s game.   Those brave few that continue to watch know what happened.  The defense had another, yes another, monumental 4th quarter collapse that gave the Bears 21 points, the last of which was on a 40 yard touchdown run.  This continues to be a major problem with the team but let’s also be fair: it’s not as if this collapse spoiled fine play on the offensive side of the ball.

Jason Campbell didn't lose the game.  But where he failed is where every other similarly situated Browns quarterback has failed.  He can’t win a game on his own.  He doesn't have the presence and doesn't have the skill to lift a team’s spirit and push it forward in the tough moments of a game.  He’s in very fitting company with all the other ones who have tried and failed in a Browns uniform.

Sunday Campbell helped put together a decent first drive but he couldn't finish, a consistent theme on both sides of the ball.  Campbell did throw a 43-yard touchdown pass with under a minute remaining.  The Bears were up 14 points.  In other words, it was garbage time.  What Campbell was able to do, once, was put together a drive that mattered that resulted in the Edwin Baker 2-yard touchdown run.

Is this all Campbell’s fault?  Of course not.  The holding penalty on Shaun Lauvao early in the fourth quarter negated a nice run by Chris Ogbonnaya that had taken the ball deep into Chicago territory.  The penalty ultimately pushed the Browns back far enough where they had to punt.  If that penalty doesn't happen, maybe the Browns go in for the touchdown and maybe they go up 14, just like a week ago.  But given Campbell’s play, there’s at least as much reason to think that the Browns end up getting another field goal, at best.  At worst, he throws an interception.

Either way, it was still on the defense to help make a paltry lead stand.  It was at that point where my future son-in-law leaned over to me and asked me if I thought the Browns could seal the deal for once.  How do you think I answered?

As if on a timer, the defense then collapsed.  The capper was not the Michael Bush 40-yard touchdown run.  That was icing on a cake that was fully baked.  Once the Bears had overcome the deficit and gone up by 7, the defense was waiving the flag of defeat.  It might be they lacked confidence in Campbell and the offense.  It might be that they lacked confidence in themselves.  It was probably both.

The capper was the 45-yard improbable touchdown pass to Alshon Jeffery.  What was remarkable was the fact that Cutler threw the ball in the first place.  He saw Jeffery seemingly well covered by Tashaun Gipson and Julian Posey and still figured “why the hell not?”  Why the hell not indeed.

Gipson seemed perfectly positioned in front of Jeffery.  It didn't matter.  Gipson jumped and missed and the ball landed perfectly in Jeffery’s arms.  Give Jeffery credit for good concentration certainly but that play, more than any other this season, succinctly documented this team’s massive defensive shortcomings.

Safety T.J. Ward, who had a fumble recovery for a touchdown, said that the team won't be folding in it's last two games.  Who is he kidding.  This team is neatly folded with crisp hospital corners.  It couldn't possibly fold any further.

What we’re left with then is what we’re always left with: a team without a quarterback it can believe in and a defense that’s all shit no hit.  In other words, wash, rinse, repeat.  There’s two more weeks to go.

Bring on the Bye Week

For as much controversy that has swirls around the Cleveland Browns, and this past week was no different with owner Randy Lerner letting it be known that this team could desperately use a legitimate football man as its franchise leader, there were some reasons for the naïve among us to at least be optimistic about the matchup with the Chicago Bears on Sunday.

After all, the Browns had won 3 of their last 4 against the Bears. Then there was the fact that the Browns were 9-4 lifetime against the Bears. There also was the fact that the Bears were coming off a humiliating loss to the Cincinnati Bengals and were perhaps taking the woeful Browns a little too lightly. And if none of that was good enough, then there was always the hope and a wish that things couldn’t possibly get worse.

Depending on your perspective, things didn’t get worse, if only because that would be impossible. They didn’t get much better either, unless you consider progress as measured by a semi-inspired effort by the league’s worst defense coupled with the fact that Derek Anderson may have taken his last snap in Cleveland. Even then, the Browns still were manhandled by another NFC North team, losing 30-6 in a game that was closer than it should have been, considering the Browns turned it over 5, count ‘em 5, times.

Credit for the relatively close score goes mostly to defensive coordinator Rob Ryan. Ryan, one of the best quotes and more fascinating coaches in the league, had his defense constantly pressuring Bears quarterback Jay Cutler, sacking him 4 times. It didn’t keep the Bears from scoring more than enough points but it did give Bears fans something further to consider, like maybe they really did get the wrong end of the Kyle Orton/Jay Culer trade. Ryan’s edge-of-the-cliff game plan kept the Browns in it, technically, until the roof fell in for good during the fourth quarter.

And fall in it did. After trailing the bears 16-0 at the half, the Browns had an opportunity to get back into the game quickly in the second half.

After the defense held the Bears to a quick 3-and-out to start the half, the Bears’ first punt by Brad Maynard was nullified by a penalty. His second punt was shanked like an 22-handicapper’s 4 iron and traveled 12 yards, giving the Browns the ball at the Bears’ 30-yard line.

And for one of the few times this season, the Browns stared at good fortune and didn’t blink. Jamal Lewis, taking advantage of gaping holes along the Bears’ defensive line, ran for 13 yards on first down, added 6 more on his next run and another 10 yards after that. Anderson then snuck it in from inside the 1-yard line. The Phil Dawson extra point was blocked and the Browns trailed 16-6.

The defense then held serve on the Bears’ next possession. Maynard this time hit a nice punt which the Bears downed at the Cleveland 1-yard line. The Browns were able to move it out of the shadow of the end zone on a nice Jerome Harrison run but the drive died three plays later.

There was still nearly 7 minutes left in the game but it was at this spot where most other games have died. The offense, having done something positive for one of the few times this season, had just seen its momentum come to a screeching halt. The defense, though, was doing its best to make sure it didn’t happen, containing Cutler and a Bears offense that was more stagnant than stunning. If only the Browns’ offense could respond.

And just when it seemed it might, a pass from Anderson to Heiden that looked to extend a key drive was fumbled by Heiden and picked up by Manning. For as hard as it had been playing, the defense looked spent and dispirited after the fumble. It gave up a 31-yard pass from Cutler to Johnny Knox that took the ball to the Cleveland 10-yard drive and then Forte drove home that fact with a 10-yard touchdown run that helped give the Bears a 23-6 lead with just under two minutes left in the third quarter.

Not quite dead but clearly dying, the Browns looked to have something going on their next drive but it wasn’t much. The drive and the team died its natural death at the Bears’ 27-yard line when a 4th and 1 pass by Anderson to Heiden fell incomplete, giving the Bears the opportunity to put the game away for good.

The Bears couldn’t do it, at least not initially. Cutler, after seeing one pass almost intercepted, saw his luck run out two plays later when Brodney Pool intercepted a pass off a Kaluka Maiava tip, giving the Browns the ball at the Bears 35-yard line.

Anderson then completed his best pass of the day, a 19-yarder to Mohamed Massaquoi, but Massaquoi fumbled it and the Bears recovered. It was the Browns’ 4th turnover of the game.

This time the Bears put the game away for good, perhaps not the way their fans would have initially liked, but for good nonetheless. After recovering the Heiden fumble at the their own 15-yard line, Cutler drove the Bears down to the Cleveland 1-yard line. But on 4th and 1, Cutler couldn’t connect in the end zone, giving the Browns the ball with just under 5 minutes remaining, 1st and 99 yards and 17 points to go.

As he exited the field, Cutler and Ryan could be seen barking at each other, with Ryan dropping a few f-bombs in Cutler’s direction. Perhaps Ryan should have waited before beating his chest. After all, Anderson was still behind center at that point, clinging to his career. The pressure proved to be too much. After two handoffs to Lewis almost resulted in safeties, Anderson, eschewing taking the safety when he could find no one downfield, threw it up for grabs. Bears defensive back Charles Tillman apparently called for it and then promptly returned it for a touchdown giving the Bears the 30-6 lead.

Even that was too much for head coach Eric Mangini, who must be feeling the pressure himself. Apparently after getting word from the press box that it would now be impossible for Brady Quinn to earn any sort of bonus for snaps taken, he turned to Quinn with just 3 minutes remaining.

Quinn hit his first pass but saw Heiden drop a potential first round pass on third down. Mangini will likely blame Quinn and start Brett Ratliff following the bye week.

If this is indeed Anderson’s last start, barring an injury, then he went out with a blaze of glory. Already the worst rated quarterback in the league, and by a healthy margin, Anderson completed 6 of 17 passes for 76 yards and 2 interceptions. It gave Anderson a rating of 10.539. It dropped his league low rating from 40.6 to 36.1.

But really, the story of Anderson is the story of the Browns this season. Although Anderson was the lowest rated passer last season, he’s worse this season for the simple reason that there is even less talent surrounding him, both on the field and on the sidelines. All its done is highlight every single shortcoming in his very limited game.

Quinn, too, has his share of shortcomings, but they aren’t nearly as fully developed. Where he is better than Anderson is on short to mid-range passes and right now that’s the area where the Browns suffer the most. If Quinn does indeed get the starting job back, it probably won’t make a huge difference. Same players, same coaches.

The running game, not particularly strong, was at least finding enough holes to keep the offense moving on occasion, particularly in that second half. Lewis had 69 yards on 16 carries, Josh Cribbs had 28 yards on 6 carries out of the Wildcat formation and Jerome Harrison added another 19 yards on 5 carries. Those aren’t great stats, certainly, but enough to suggest that the onus wasn’t just on Anderson.

Although Ryan’s defense gave up 23 points, it could have been far worse. With 5 turnovers to go along with their general ineffectiveness, the offense was constantly putting pressure on the defense.

After holding the Bears to 3-and-out on their opening two possessions, the defense gave up four straight scores, 3 of which were Robbie Gould field goals. On the drive that led to their first field goal, for example, the Bears had the ball at the Cleveland 15-yard line but couldn’t advance it any further.

After Anderson was picked off on a great effort by Danieal Manning, who returned it to the Browns’ 13-yard line, the defense again held Cutler. On another drive started by a Cleveland turnover—an Anderson/Lewis botched handoff, the Bears took it to the Cleveland 9-yard line but had to settle for another field goal after Kamerion Wimbley sacked Cutler for an 11-yard loss. The problem, though, is that this third field goal put the Bears up by two scores and given how little the Browns were doing offensively, it looked like a huge hill to climb.

The hill got even higher when the Bears finally found the end zone on their next drive thanks to 1-yard Matt Forte run that helped give the Bears a 16-0 lead. That drive would have ended much sooner and without a score but on 3rd-and-8 from Chicago’s 31-yard line, Wimbley went helmet-to-helmet with Cutler and was flagged for the roughing penalty. It will probably cost Wimbley about $10,000. It also cost Cutler a few moments of clarity, but only a few. Cutler completed his next 4 passes to put the team in position for the Forte touchdown run.

As this most miserable of half seasons comes to an end, the Browns and their fans get a much needed week off. That’s probably bad news for those in the league that look at playing the Browns the same way that someone with allergies looks at a bottle of Zyrtec. Relief will just have to wait.

As for what the second half of the season holds there’s no way of knowing. Everything the Browns have done to this point has been a crashing disappointment. But at least there’s one bit of good news. The only NFC North team remaining on the schedule is the Detroit Lions.

I Love You, Man

Infatuation can be an alluring emotion. It can make you giddy. It can make you do stupid things, too. A case in point is the latest column, the second in two weeks, by the Plain Dealer’s Bud Shaw imploring the Browns to essentially move heaven and earth to get Jay Cutler on the roster. Now that Cutler’s off to Chicago, one can only imagine Bud’s next column.

Clearly Shaw has a case of man-love for Cutler. That’s all well and good. We all have our crushes. But this was is just puzzling.

Shaw makes his case by going straight for the jugular of Browns fans, invoking the one person who still is the object of more man-love from modern day Browns fans than any other player, Bernie Kosar. Shaw says that Cutler possesses the same swagger that made Kosar so successful. Not so fast, Bud.

Cutler is a nice player. But he’s a nice player like Derek Anderson is a nice player. The only difference between the two right now is that Cutler’s had two relatively decent years while Anderson has had one good year and one not so good year that ended prematurely with an injury.

Anderson and Cutler are the same age, although Anderson entered the league a year earlier than Cutler. Both quarterbacks have what the scouts like to call a “big arm.” Cutler was a 1st round pick of the Broncos in 2006 out of Vanderbilt and became somewhat of a “flavor of the month” to NFL scouts during the combine, akin to Joe Flacco last season. As a first round pick, Cutler brought with him all the usual pressures that come with it, including the desire of fans to rush him into action.

Anderson played for pass happy Oregon State, which seemed to cause scouts to discount his somewhat gaudy statistics. But it is noteworthy that Anderson was only the 6th person in the PAC-10 to throw for more than 10,000 yards in his career. Anderson also holds pretty much every Oregon State passing record.

But Anderson stayed under the radar screen throughout the combine. He ended up being drafted in the sixth round by Baltimore in the 2005 draft which means the Ravens’ investment in him was only slightly more than their investment in new water coolers. That status accorded him little pressure from the fans and little respect from the coaching staff. But when Anderson was cut by the Ravens in September, 2005, former Browns’ general manager, Phil Savage, grabbed him. Anderson spent the 2005 season watching Trent Dilfer and Charlie Frye.

While Anderson technically had a year of experience on Cutler, the first game action for each came during the 2006 season. Cutler started 5 games, Anderson 3. Both showed some promise, Cutler perhaps a bit more. In Cutler’s 5 starts, he through 9 touchdowns against interceptions. In Anderson’s 5 games, 3 of which were starts, he had 5 touchdowns against 8 interceptions.

Cutler was all but set to be the Broncos starter in 2006. Anderson was in a training camp battle with Charlie Frye that Frye ostensibly won. Frye’s victory lasted all of about one quarter in the team’s first game when all the traits that made fans wonder why Frye got the start were exposed against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Anderson quickly replaced Frye (who was traded the next day) and embarked on one of the most magical seasons of any quarterback in Cleveland Browns’ history.

Indeed, the 2007 season was the coming out party for both players. Cutler led his team to a 7-9 record. Cutler, though, had a breakout year. He completed over 63% of his passes, through 20 touchdowns to 14 interceptions, and ended the year with a rating of 88.1. He also averaged 7.5 yards per attempt. The one downside of Cutler’s year was the number of sacks, 27.

But Anderson was even better. After the disaster of the opening game, Anderson helped lead the team to a 10-6 record while throwing 29 touchdown passes against 19 interceptions. He ended the season with a 82.5 rating and his yards per attempt was similar to Cutler’s at 7.2. Anderson was sacked only 14 times, or less than once per game, and made the Pro Bowl.

Maybe it was the pressure of the previous season, maybe it was the inability to make adjustments after teams had made adjustments to him, or maybe it was a little of both, but Anderson had an awful 2008 season, by almost any measure. Anderson too often looked confused and too reliant on just flinging the ball deep, hoping something good would happen. It didn’t help Anderson either that Joe Jurevicius was out the whole season or that Braylon Edwards played like he was. The Browns’ running attack wasn’t particularly effective and the line, without Ryan Tucker, struggled far more than it did in 2007.

Cutler, by contrast, put up another good season personally and made the Pro Bowl even as he wasn’t able to move the needle much on the team’s overall performance. More damming though for Cutler was the fact that his team entered it’s final 3 games with a 8-5 record and really needed only to win one of them to make the playoffs. They lost all 3. The Broncos’ defense was awful last season and that accounts for a large part of it, but Cutler wasn’t exactly brilliant either. While he threw for over 300 yards in the last two games, that was more a function of the fact that he attempted nearly 50 passes in each game. What ever leadership he brought to the team generally wasn’t enough to help it get over the hump when it needed to most.

This isn’t to damn Cutler at the expense of Anderson. It’s just to underscore the reality that is Cutler. Like Anderson, he still hasn’t led a team to the playoffs. He’s put up some nice numbers in his first two seasons as a starter and probably will get better. If your team is lacking a quarterback, he’d be a decent pick up. But all that doesn’t make him the “sure thing” that Shaw seems to think.

In Shaw’s world, the Browns should do whatever it takes to get Cutler. I wonder if that means swinging a trade now with Chicago? Shaw doesn’t offer whether it should be at the expense of Anderson or Brady Quinn, but the clear implication is that it doesn’t really matter because Cutler would be a far better choice to lead this team.

It might be true that Cutler eventually becomes a sure thing and it might be true that he will have a better career than either Anderson or Quinn, but there aren’t enough facts on which to base those suppositions. The full depth of Anderson’s potential isn’t really known. About the only conclusion you can really draw is that he’s a fire or ice kind of player.

But putting Anderson aside, what’s the push to simply dump an unknown commodity in Quinn? Shaw never explains. Quinn had very little opportunity with an objectively poor team last season. That he would get injured given the scattered play of the line was almost a foregone conclusion. But in his relatively limited playing time covering the last few seasons all Quinn ever has done is show he belongs in the NFL. Exactly where, it’s hard to say. But he is a NFL quarterback.

The fact that head coach Eric Mangini is conducting open auditions for the starting quarterback as if he was casting the road show production of “A Chorus Line” shouldn’t be taken as confirmation that neither Quinn nor Anderson is a viable starter. Giving Mangini the full benefit of the doubt at this point, it simply means that he sees what everyone else does: the book on Anderson is only about 1/3 written and we’ve barely gotten past the preface in Quinn’s.

Even more to the point though, as I’ve been constantly preaching, it isn’t going to matter whether the Browns have Cutler, Quinn or Joe Montana in his prime. If there’s no one to throw to that can actually catch, Mangini would do just as well to dig up the corpse of George Plimpton.

The real barometer for whether or not the Browns should make a run at Cutler is whether by adding him, whatever the cost, the Browns are a better team. If the answer to that is “yes,” and I struggle to see how anyone could even make that conclusion, then you have to ask the next question, “is the value he adds worth the cost?”

Chicago paid a fairly hefty price, in the form of two first round picks and Kyle Orton, though they did get a third rounder back this year. Bravo to the Broncos for exploiting a desperate market and we’ll leave it to the discerning fans of Chicago to skewer their front office for giving into the frenzy by overpaying. But even if what Chicago paid is an accurate barometer of Cutler’s market value, it clearly would have cost them Anderson or Quinn. Thus, two first round picks and one of your quarterbacks for another quarterback that doesn’t appear to be much, if any, of an upgrade is simply too steep for a team that has numerous holes to plug.

But then again, infatuation can make a person do stupid things. Just be glad Shaw isn’t running the Browns these days. He’d have them filling a hole that no one’s sure yet is even cracked all the while missing the fact that the rest of the team is as bumpy and pockmarked as Euclid Avenue in March.

The End of the Beginning

The Cleveland Browns, in need of a good showing at a minimum, looked to take advantage Thursday night of the fact that the Chicago Bears are not the New York Giants or even the Detroit Lions but couldn’t and ended a bizarre and disappointing preseason with a 16-10 loss. It’s now back to the think tank to ponder what happened and prepare for the opener against Dallas in what is now 10 increasingly shorter days away.

The loss resulted in only the third winless preseason in Browns history, the last coming sometime around the Truman administration. Actually, the last time the Browns finished winless in the preseason was 1972. Proving the ultimate point that the preseason is meaningless, the 1972 team finished 10-4 and nearly spoiled the Miami Dolphins perfect season in the playoffs. Still, when you consider that the ensuring 36 years between those winless preseasons covered an awful lot of bad football, including every team since the Browns returned in 1999, it does give pause to consider the ramifications for this season in which so much is otherwise expected.

But just because the Browns on Thursday ended up losing one of the most boring games in the history of organized sports doesn’t mean it’s immediately time to turn your attention to the Cavs. Quarterback Brady Quinn, subbing for starter Derek Anderson, led a mostly crisp attack on the opening drive but couldn’t finish it off, missing a wide open Kellen Winslow in the end zone on third down from the Bears’ eight-yard line. It was a theme. All totaled, it was one of three certain but missed touchdowns that turned what should have been a win into a loss.

Defensively, a Brandon McDonald interception on the Bears’ opening drive saved what was otherwise turning into a typical Browns defensive stand, meaning bend, bend, bend and hopefully hold to at least a field goal. After one quick first down, the Bears stalled on the strength of their own incompetence, committing two straight false start penalties and leaving themselves in a 3rd-17 hole. Indeed, they seemed to concede the punt by running a simple screen that the defense immediately turned into another first down.

The McDonald interception thereafter was thus timely and put the ball at the Browns 28-yard line. Based mostly on a strong running attack anchored by Jason Wright, Quinn marched the team 72 yards in 10 plays for the 10-0 lead just before the first quarter ended. The drive was capped on a nifty fake to fullback Lawrence Vickers at the 1-yard line and a lateral to Wright who went into the end zone mostly untouched. Quinn and the starters’ work was through. The Browns wouldn’t score again.

After quickly falling behind 10-0, the Bears’ starters seemed to lose whatever slight interest they brought to town and were looking for the safety of the bench. Bears quarterback Kyle Orton lived up to the burden of being Kyle Orton, missing receivers with the kind of frequency that suggested he’d have trouble beating out Ken Dorsey for the third string job in Cleveland. He was unable to move the Bears to a score against a defense that’s been accommodating to virtually everyone else. That had to thrill Bears fans, but that’s their problem. Cleveland has its own set of issues.

After seeing enough of Quinn in two series head coach Romeo Crennel sent in Dorsey to manage the rest of the game with nearly three quarters left to play. Surely the instruction was to manage the game to a quick and efficient end and Dorsey mostly complied, eschewing the spectacular for the average. But to be fair, Dorsey had two near certain touchdown passes dropped, one by Travis Wilson, the other by rookie Paul Hubbard.

Orton, who really could use the playing time, nonetheless gave way to Rex Grossman, last year’s starter, at the same time as Quinn. It was hard to tell the difference, save for that throwback ‘70s porn-star moustache Orton sported. Grossman handed off a lot and found enough open receivers to put together a 13-play 95-yard drive to close the gap to 10-7 with about three minutes left in the first half.

The drive itself wasn’t as noteworthy or interesting as the fact that Grossman was quickly yanked right after in favor of Caleb Hanie, a rookie from Colarado State. Either head coach Lovie Smith was deliberately sabotaging Grossman’s chance to be the starter or he had already concluded that Grossman and Orton were interchangeable and thus didn’t want to risk an injury to either.

For his part Hanie showed the kind of poise that seems to have eluded both Grossman and Orton throughout their careers. Indeed, he looked like Brady Quinn during last year’s preseason. He did enough to lead the Bears to three field goals, the last coming soon after a Dorsey interception late in the fourth quarter, that was the margin of difference.

Hanie, too, was victimized. In the midst of putting together what looked to be an 80-yard touchdown drive with less than two minutes left in the half, Hanie was done in by two Bears penalties, the most crucial of which was an iffy but fortuitous holding call on former Buckeye Kirk Barton on a Hanie-to-Mark Bradley touchdown pass.

It’s actually hard to figure out why the second half was played other than out of contractual obligations. With injuries piling up, it likely wouldn’t have taken much to convince either Crennel or Smith to head into the locker room early and catch the rest of the Democratic National Convention. But play on they did and Hanie took the most advantage of the opportunity and in the process gave Bears fans enough reason to think that their quarterback situation isn’t nearly as desperate as, say, the Baltimore Ravens. Meanwhile Dorsey solidified his status as an active roster mentor to Anderson and Quinn.

Still, to the extent that it’s either necessary or desirable to glean any information from teams clearly trying to hurry through to the post-game meal, it’s this: the Browns’ second string defensive line looks and plays a lot like last season’s starting defensive line. Huge running lanes seemed to open at will. Receivers ran unmolested throughout the secondary. Tackles were missed Third downs were converted. The drives were long. It was a stark and painful reminder of the lack of depth this team possesses. It’s a problem that will linger.

Speaking of problems that will linger, much angst and worry has rightly been directed at the defensive backfield. But another problem area quickly emerging is at wide receiver. Braylon Edwards was out again but that seemed to be purely precautionary. Donte Stallworth, too, was a similar no-show. Winslow played, but sparingly. It gave Crennel and offensive coordinator Rod Chudzinski the chance to evaluate the rest of the contenders for that third and fourth receiver spots. Charitably, it was a mixed bag.

Syndric Steptoe, who has had some good moments this preseason, went out early with a shoulder injury suffered while making a tackle on special teams. Travis Wilson demonstrated why he’s the Andy Marte of the Browns. He seems to have skills, he just doesn’t make a habit of displaying them often enough. Unless he does something spectacular and soon, the most lasting image of Wilson will be of his dropping a perfect pass in stride from Dorsey that at a minimum would have been a long gain to keep a drive alive and likely would have been a touchdown. It was the kind of drop that all but assured that if he’s thrown to again, it will only be because there isn’t another option.

Hubbard, like Wilson fighting for a roster spot, might not be so lucky. He dropped a critical third and two pass from the Chicago two-yard line that could have won the game. The best he can probably hope for at this point is a spot on the practice squad.

As for the defensive secondary, its bright spot was the two interceptions, the one by McDonald and another by the newly acquired Travis Key, who also had a sack on a blitz. The only problem is that each of those plays came against the Bears’ reserves. It was hardly enough to give anyone any real comfort that Crennel and defensive coordinator Mel Tucker were any closer to finding a way to adequately paper over a definite lack of talent.

With a whimper, the 2008 preseason has ended. The Browns now have 10 days before the regular season opener against Dallas to find the consistency that has been missing all preseason. It’s not an impossible task, certainly. It’s just that there are enough injuries and question marks lingering to make one think that it’s going to take far longer than 10 days before this team will click.