Derek Anderson. It's not his fault!!!

Thursday night football is done, which means it's time to look at my pick: Bears 6 @ 49'ers 10 : Ugly game of football. As predicted, the 49'ers pulled it off and, as predicted, Gore went over 100 yds (though the 150 possibility now looks extremely optimistic). Jay Cutler threw 5 picks, which pretty much was all that divided the two teams. In fact without those you'd be forgiven for thinking that the Bears would have dominated this game. The 49'ers produced just 216 yards of net total offense. That's poor. 53 offensive plays produced an average of just 4.1 yards per play. The strength is definitely in the defence, but that offense is pretty bad. What's more, the 16 completions (of 23 pass plays) produced just 118 yds. I still don't get it. You've got Frank Gore. Singletary said he likes to run the ball. So run it! The Bears meanwhile hate running. They elected for 52 passes out of 73 offensive snaps. It produced 307 yards..... and 5 turnovers. Two unexciting teams had an unexciting duel and one just barely managed to scrape it's head over the parapet. 'Grats to my 49'ers. May we hope to one day score a few more points. And having dished out some late extra credit to Jay Ratliff for his performance against the Eagles, I'm gonna give some to Greg Cosell, film analyst for NFL.com's "Anatomy of a play". Some of you may remember I bashed Greg and his crew a few weeks ago for heaping praise on Tony Romo, Miles Austin & the Cowboys coaches after what was essentially just a mistake by the Falcons D. Well, they had another Romo to Austin "anatomy" this week (the late TD from Sunday night), and surprisingly they pretty much hit the nail on the head. The Eagles D just executed their assignments poorly and were punished. But I'm still gonna nit pick. They mentioned Romos excellent pump fake and how it fooled the defenders etc. The dude just twisted his shoulders a little...... Cleveland Browns!!!! Bet you're excited now aren't you? Well, as promised, I'm going to try and convince you that Derek Anderson is not a bad QB. Because he's not. Ok, stop laughing. Yes, very funny. But I'm serious. Derek Anderson is not that bad and replacing him with Brady Quinn will not solve the Browns offensive woes. It's simple. Their receivers cannot catch. And I don't just mean the odd moment of butter fingered silliness, I mean a chronic lack of receiving ability. The Browns rank 31st for total team receptions, only superior to the miserably bad Oakland Raiders. When you look at their completion percentage, it's dead last. 48.1% Blurgh!!! (We (who's we?) interrupt this blog post to point out that the bottom 10 teams in completion percentage this season are, from worst to best (haha) : Browns, Raiders, Buccaneers, Jets, Lions, Titans, Rams, Chiefs, Bills, Panthers. They combine for a win-loss record of 19-61. The top 10 teams are from best to worst: Steelers, Colts, Saints, Vikings, Texans, Patriots, Cardinals, Ravens, Redskins, Broncos. That includes the only two undefeated teams in the league, and they combine for a joint record of 57-24, with 14 of those losses (over half) divided among just three teams. Not a bad stat for looking for winners. Though like all stats, not perfect either.) The reality is that if your wideouts can't catch the ball, your QB will look like an idiot and your team will suffer. Now contrast this if you will to 2007. In addition to Anderson, four names repeatedly crop up: Jamal Lewis, Braylon Edwards, Joe Jurevicius and Kellen Winslow II. Jurevicius caught 50 balls for 614 yards and 3 TD's. Edwards caught 80 balls for 1,289 yards and 16 TD's. Winslow caught 82 balls for 1,106 yards and 5 TD's. Lewis had 298 carries for 1,304 yards and 9 TD's and contributed another 3 TD's as a receiver. Edwards is now with the Jets. Jurevicius is lingering in free agency. Winslow was shipped out to Tampa. Lewis is retiring at the end of the year. All of Clevelands decent pass assets are gone and Lewis can't carry this team at his age. The Browns leading receiver this year is Mohamed Massaquoi. The rookie has caught 19 balls in 8 games. Derek Anderson is not the problem. Brady Quinn is not the problem. It is now apparent that the Browns simply lack the skills at the receiver position to catch balls. Brett Favre or Peyton Manning could walk onto this team right now and fail just as miserably. Good luck for the rest of the season Browns...... And as always, if you like the blog, spread the word. Ta.