So DA's Winning The Quarterback Battle Now, Right?

Just when Derek Anderson seemed to be on the brink of losing the quarterback battle in Cleveland, he came out blazing against the Detroit Lions. On the Browns' first possession of the game, he marched the team down the field on a drive the ended with a 4 yard touchdown run by Jamal Lewis. He continued to put up solid passing numbers throughout the first half, building a 20-3 halftime lead and compiling 130 yards passing. So clearly, he must be the leader in the quarterback battle, right?

Not so fast.

Let's look at the scoring a little more closely.

DA's first drive was clearly his best. He did not punch it in with a pass, but he put the team in position to score, which is what all quarterbacks are asked to do. So that's 7 points that can be attributed to DA's play.

The next time DA stepped on the field was after an Eric Wright interception that gave the Browns the ball on the Detroit 20 yard line. Derek Anderson failed to lead the team to a first down, and they settled for a field goal. Clearly, this score goes to the defense.

The following score was a spectacular punt return by Josh Cribbs, giving the Browns a 17-0 lead.

On the following drive, DA hit Edwards for 34 yards, which was followed by a pass interference call that put the ball on the Detroit 22 yard line. The offense failed to gain another first down, and kicked the field goal. Combined with the first field goal, we can now credit Derek Anderson to leading the team to 10 points of offense.

Brady Quinn played the next two drives, netting 29 yards on 3/5 passing.

Derek Anderson then came back onto the field for the final drive. On a poorly thrown pass to James Davis, he was intercepted, giving Detroit the ball in field goal range, which they took advantage of. With Derek Anderson, as with all players, you must take the good with the bad, so you must give him credit for the three points scored by Detroit. Adding up his touchdown and field goal, then subtracting the three points he handed to the Lions, his net lead was seven points. Not quite as impressive at the 17 point lead on the scoreboard at halftime.

So where does that leave us after two games? When you combine the stat lines of the first two pre-season games for both Brady Quinn and Derek Anderson, this is what you get:

Derek Anderson 8/15 130 yards 0 TD 2 INT 53.3% completion 43.1 Quarterback Rating

Brady Quinn 10/16 97 yards 0 TD 1 INT 62.5% completion 53.1 Quarterback Rating

Even after what appeared to be a stellar performance by Derek Anderson, he still trails Brady Quinn in every statistical category except total yards. He's still only responsible for a seven point lead against a team that finished the 2008 season winless. And I would be remissed if I did not mentioned the perfectly thrown touchdown pass from Brady Quinn that Braylon Edwards dropped against the Packers. Imagine what his stat line would be if that had resulted in a score (if you don't have much of an imagination, his completion percentage would have jumped to 73% and his quarterback rating to 113).

All in all, Derek Anderson played a fine game against the Detroit Lions, and certainly closed the gap between himself and Brady Quinn in the competition for the starting quarterback job of the Cleveland Browns. But he still only built a 7 point lead against the lowly Detroit Lions, and after two games, looks like the same old Derek Anderson, a guy who completes a low percentage of passes and makes more than his fair share of costly mistakes. In my mind, this still leaves him trailing Brady Quinn.