The quarterback watch continues

Eric Mangini did not name his quarterback on Monday. The process continues.

Is anyone surprised?

I mean, really. Did we expect that after all the offseason work and all of training camp and three games that he’d actually … you know … know who would start.

That being said, I don’t recall Cleveland city council passing a law saying he has to name a starter. Not yet at least.

Used to be that the league required starting lineups to be announced three days before a game. So when I covered Don Shula he would always, always, always go over the starting lineup on Thursday. Because Shula followed the rules, and if the rule said three days, he’d say it on that third day prior to the game. Nowadays a team won’t even say what an injury is during a preseason game because … well … because they don’t have to. So they put their thumb on their nose and wiggle their fingers at the world and tell the world to stick their curiosity about an injury.

There’s no rule about starting lineups either – not that I know of at least – so Mangini can keep us guessing right until the opener. Competitive advantage and all that drivel … err … stuff.

What’s to make of this quarterback non-announcement?

I have no idea.

This is the kind of insight you should be used to on this frog.

But I have no idea.

Either Mangini doesn’t know – or he wants to keep the Vikings guessing. Which to me seems pretty silly, because it’s really only a surprise for one play. Me personally, I don’t think one of the league’s dominant defenses is going to change a lot depending on who plays for the Browns.

The Vikings have the approach that they do not let a team run on them, then they attack on the pass rush with the best tandem of tackles in the league and Jared Allen. No matter who plays running back for the Browns on Sept. 13, he’s not going to run much. It simply does not happen against Minnesota.

So it doesn’t seem to matter who plays for the Browns, except for that surprising first play, which given the NFL play-callers will be a run off the right guard into the two gap off the tackle and under the scraping linebacker.

Maybe Mangini really isn’t sure who should play quarterback. Maybe in all his analysis and charting and study, he believes the two are even. I hope that’s not true at this point. At this point, you’d hope he has a clue.

Or maybe he wants to make them work for it. As if they haven’t been working for it these past months.

I have no idea.

I just know the process continues. And might continue right up through the generation following the generation following the next generation of Kennedys.