This is my come clean post on Derek Anderson.
He is actually my long lost brother. That’s why I’ve shown support for him here.
Okay, so that statement may be b.s., but I really do intend this to be an honest and forthright piece about D.A.
I regret writing the “I Don’t Want To Say We Told You So, But…” article after the game against the ‘Nati. Admittedly, I was drunk and probably a little emotional.
Having said that, the post came from a genuine place. I’ve always had a soft spot for D.A., ever since Week 1 in 2007 when Tim and I sat at a bar in Westwood and watched the Steelers trounce the Browns while a rotund man waved a Terrible Towel and a homeless guy told us that Butch Davis was the best coach the Browns ever had. The fans, he said, ran Butch out of town - and were also the reason Modell moved the team to Baltimore.
That week D.A. wasn’t good. So when we back to the bar the following week to watch the Browns play the Bengals, and the offense put up 51 points and D.A. threw for 5 TD, we were stunned. Everyone at O’Hara’s was following the contest, a 51-45 Browns victory. The quality of play was utterly unexpected. Frankly, it was dream-like given the fact that we assumed the Browns might not win 4 games that year after seeing how poorly they played in Week 1.
As time passes, I find myself becoming less and less of a pure fan - I tend to look at sports more clinically now, having found myself on the wrong side of anger and sadness too many times in the past - but that was a pure fan moment. It was an experience I shared with my brother at the beginning of a very difficult year in my life and is something I will always be able to cherish.
I suppose that’s why I never understood all of the criticism that’s seemed to follow D.A. every step of the way during his career in Cleveland. You’d all laugh me off of the internet if I tried telling you Anderson is a perfect quarterback. I don’t believe football is a great sport for stats, especially individual ones, but plenty of statistics would make that assertion look silly. Don’t worry, I’m not inclined to say Anderson is perfect, great, or even good. I’m not sure yet what he is. I want to see how he reacts to Alpha’s coaching, which will try and guide him into not throwing as many picks. But the most important stat in my mind at this point - wins - makes him seem fairly average, as he’s 13-14 over 4 seasons.
What troubles me is all of the vitriol tossed D.A.’s way. For a franchise that has only had two winning seasons since 1999, the year they returned to the NFL, the 2007 D.A.-led team was probably its brightest moment. Why not root for a guy that had something to do with that?
I write a lot about not dwelling too much on the failures of the past, and I suppose this really should go both ways, with both the positive and the negative, but I promise that D.A. doesn’t want to lose football games. Even if you’re cynical and you believe that it’s only because he knows his future in the NFL is tied to his ability to win…D.A. wants to repeat the success he’s had previously.
Because so much of the angst that’s been aimed at D.A. seems unreasonable and illogical to me, I’ve always attributed it to the fan base’s love affair with Quinn as an Ohio boy that they got to watch in college, playing for Notre Dame. My whole problem with the support for Quinn was that it was blind - there was very little evidence to suggest that he could be effective in the NFL.
But maybe I’ve been too hard on Brady. I believe we should all support the players on the teams we root for more than we do. That’s what it means to be a fan, I think, to be an extended member of a team. I know I’ve fallen victim to being overly critical at times. I try to be as objective as analytical as possible, but I’m sure I can do better. In this case, I just wanted to see the Browns be competitive - and I felt that the evidence stated that D.A. gave the team the best shot to do that.
As for the game on Sunday against the Bills, it’s not fair to talk about D.A. by simply saying “he went 2/17 and had a passer rating of 15.1, he shouldn’t be in the NFL.” Any conversation about his performance has to include the following qualifiers:
1) The offense was re-set yet again. The #1 receiver was removed and replaced, and essentially two new receivers were added, Chanci Stuckey and Brian Robiskie.
2) The wind was swirling at 34MPH.
3) 12 balls that D.A. threw hit the hands of his receivers and were not caught. Being lenient, at least 7 of those balls could be considered drops.
4) The game plan was clearly designed around running the football, both because of the wind and because of the Bills defense. More often that not, the team was running the ball the first two downs and throwing on third down and long when the Bills knew exactly what was coming. 12 of Anderson’s 17 passes came on third down and 8 of those were on 3rd down and 5 or longer.
Finally, I’ll say that Carson Palmer is 24th in the NFL in passer rating. Yet, I heard today on PTI that he should be considered an “elite” QB. I would say this is because the Bengals are 4-1, and he’s made plays at the end of games. I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with this statement. But analysts like to pick and choose which numbers support their argument instead of consistently looking at the same components and allowing a case to emerge from there.
Part of the mission of JMID is to always do the latter. And however D.A. plays this Sunday against the Steelers, I’ll look at his performance critically - but as a fan of the Cleveland Browns, I will be rooting for him.
