Brady Quinn is Starting, Now the Browns Need to Copy the Broncos Passing Game

According to Cleveland Browns Head Coach Eric Mangini, Brady Quinn will once again be the Browns' starting quarterback for Monday Night Football against the Baltimore Ravens.

At the half way point in the 2009 season, it's deja vu all over again for Browns fans, because before the season started, Quinn was named as the starter, but was then benched after 10 quarters of play.

Many of the NFL Web sites on the Internet agree that Quinn was not given a fair chance to grow into a starting quarterback, but those same sites also speculate that Quinn's $11 million in incentives played a role in his benching too.

Make your own assessment on if Quinn was benched either due to performance, or money, but regardless, he is now starting again for the Browns.

In Quinn's first 10 quarters of football, he looked very tentative in his decision making, and did not throw the ball past 20 yards.

Whether it is due to his lack of arm strength, or the complexity of the offense he was running, or even the wide receivers not running crisp routes remains to be seen, but in the last eight games of the season that conclusion should present itself as long as Mangini sticks with Quinn.

The one thing that the Browns coaching staff, and especially Offensive Coordinator Brian Daboll need to look at is the passing attack of the Denver Broncos, and their quarterback Kyle Orton.

Bronco's rookie Head Coach Josh McDaniels was heavily criticized for trading away quarterback Jay Cutler to get Orton in return from the Chicago Bears, but at midseason Orton is by far a better fit in Denver than Cutler would have been, because of the offensive system that is in place.

Now McDaniels' decision to get Orton looks like the trade of the year.

Orton does not have the strongest arm in the NFL, but he does have the passion to play, and the intelligence to understand defensive formations, and make the adjustments to counter it.

Sounds like a very similar description to Quinn.

The most astonishing statistic about Orton and the Broncos' passing attack, is that fact that they run a short, ball controlled attack with very few passes longer than 25 yards.

A stat was shown, during one of the most recent Broncos games on television, and Orton completes 83-percent of his passes thrown under 10 yards, but past 10 yards his completion percentage drops dramatically. From 11-24 yards Orton's completion percentage drops to 18-percent, and then over 25-plus yards it's only 12-percent.

These numbers might make you think that the Broncos should be struggling to move the ball, but they have moved it very, very well to the point where they are 6-2 for the season, and sitting atop of the AFC West Division.

Also to give credit where credit is due, Josh McDaniels is a quarterback development God. In the past, he has worked with, and further developed Tom Brady, but he then made a starter out of Brady's backup Matt Cassel last year when Brady went down with an injury. Now he has turned Orton into one of the better quarterbacks in the NFL.

Getting back to the point, so the formula of a short passing attack can work with a quarterback who may not have the strongest arm in the NFL, so why can't the Browns copy this format to allow Quinn to successfully move the offense?

That is the million (or more appropriately, the $11 million) question?

In all honesty, the Broncos do have an All-Pro wide receiver in Brandon Marshall, and a up and coming receiver in Eddie Royal too, whereas the Browns do not have any caliber of receiver compared to those two right now, but that will change in time.

Remember McDaniels was calling about Quinn when he was trying to trade Cutler in the offseason, so that should tell us all that Quinn can be good in the NFL, but only in a system that is similar to the Broncos passing game.

Mangini had better be taking some notes from this article, because if he truly wants Quinn to grow, and become the Browns future at quarterback, like he has said in many interviews to the media, then he better start watching as much tape of the Broncos offense as he can, and copy every passing play they use.

(Article also posted on Dawg Scooper )