I didn't disagree with those assessments upon hearing the news, though I myself was not sad to see Frye go (as you might surmise from my post below). But, the more I read, see, and hear (and read between the lines of what the players and the GM are saying), the more you can see they really do have a plan. Quoth Bill Livingston:
This was a big reversal of field after General Manager Phil Savage pleaded for the chance to see Frye with all the components of a respectable offense in place. Anything that gets Brady Quinn closer to putting down the clipboard and taking the snaps, however, is a positive move.
It's really always been about Brady Quinn. Savage announced in pre-season that the club had two tracks: the Frye/Anderson track to keep the team afloat, and the Brady Quinn development track. The only thing he couldn't tell us was when those two tracks converged. Apparently, the Frye/Anderson road took a big turn toward the Quinn road on Sunday, whether or not the team wanted it to.
More from Livy:
Frye was ill-served here with a revolving door of offensive coordinators, but so was Bernie Kosar years ago. Kosar also lacked Frye's good, but not great, athleticism. The difference is that Kosar proved quickly that he could play.
The feeling is that most of Quinn's teammates have that sense about him.
Amen. Let's face it: Charlie Frye was horrible on Sunday, and showed no indication that he had improved AT ALL over the course of his two-plus years in Cleveland. Whether that's entirely his fault, who can say. What I can say with fairly strong certainty is that the man has little field vision, no ability to read a defense pre-snap, and little sense as to when to get rid of the football and to whom it should go, a trait that is highly amplified when he's under duress.
It's like you can almost see the little angel and devil on his shoulder debating whether he should take off and run and try to make some crazy, University of Akron style throw on the run into triple coverage or whether he should stay in the pocket and try to make his reads through his progressions. Usually, the debate would take so long that before he could do one or the other he'd just get buried under a pile of defenders.
So, where does that leave the Browns? Livy?
The Browns look chaotic by doing this now. Yet trading a below-average quarterback who beat up on stiffs after a debacle isn't a big deal.
Word. While it appears that they are in total disarray, I'm beginning to think that's not really the case--maybe they're only in moderate disarray. Phil Savage basically alluded to the fact that, had one of the QBs played better in the pre-season, this trade (or a similar one for Anderson) would have happened then.
It also makes sense from the standpoint that, should they have held onto Frye and he had gone out and sharted his pants again on Sunday, his value would be completely in the crapper. And finally, there is also some degree of truth to the fact that they could have missed out on getting Dorsey back as the "mentor" to Quinn as he ramps up to get ready to play. So, while it's embarrassing that the Browns are the first team since the AFL/NFL merger in 1970 to trade the QB that started week 1 before the next game even happens, it was also a necessary means to an end, and we're not exactly talking about the second coming of Joe Montana getting traded, here.
So, the plan always was to tread water until Quinn was ready, but the suckiness of both veteran QBs in camp and on Sunday made the water a little choppier and has now accelerated that process. This made one of them expendable. Frye probably had more value on the trade market (I honestly still can't believe they got a 6th round pick for him) than Anderson, and now Anderson keeps the seat warm for Quinn. Frye being gone means Quinn gets more practice reps, which means he's ready to play sooner.
Many ask the question: well, wouldn't it have been smarter to axe one of these chodes in the pre-season to make room for Quinn? Yes, but since neither of them appeared to be any good, and since Quinn missed SO MUCH time due to his hold-out, Savage had to keep them both as a quasi-insurance policy (granted, a shitty one, but you get the idea).
So, do I think the Browns are suddenly going to be awesome, now? Hardly. But, the trade was a necessary move that I think they'd been planning/hoping to make, whether it was sooner or later. It's now Brady Quinn's team. The players know it, and the front office just confirmed it with this move.
I watched the Berea Report last night, and it's fun watching all of our players trying not to say the wrong thing when the reporters try to bait them into picking allegiance to one of the QBs. Braylon Edwards looked like his head was going to explode Scanners-style when they asked him about it. He must have said, "I support whoever goes out there. I just want to play football," at least 7 times. Winslow was similar. Anderson's good, yea, we're fine. If you employ the fine art of listening to what they're not saying, it's pretty obvious they're all ready for Quinn.
I never thought I'd agree with Mary Kay Rotten-Crotch (Cabot), but she was like, You get the sense that they all want Quinn on the field, that it's time. You could tell in the Denver game in pre-season that Brady coming in kind of charged them up, and that they like the way he plays and the way he gets them the ball. The only one to come close to openly saying it was Steve Heiden, who (when asked if Quinn was “ready” before the start of the season, even) said: "You'll have to ask Brady that. But from what I've seen, I think he is."
Now, I don't think the Browns are going to the playoffs, or even going .500, with Quinn. But I think Quinn would give the offense a chance to be a lot better the rest of the year. As I said to a friend Tuesday: there are so many holes in the dam, but if they could patch one, it would give them the opportunity to bail water from the other problem areas. And, while trading Frye and paving the way for Quinn may look frantic and disorganized to the collective NFL media as a whole, Savage may have just stuck his finger into that hole in the dam.
Quinn's about as ready as he'll ever get at this point, and if the other players on offense want him in there (whether or not they'll come out and say it), it's clear that he probably gives them the best chance to win.
And, this trade brings us one step closer to that happening.
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