MMQB Mail: Browns got it right, big night for Byron and why we vote

Sporting a 3-5 record with Derek Anderson starting, the Browns are handing the reins to second-year QB Brady Quinn. Jeff Gross/Getty Images

MONTCLAIR, N.J. -- I have been voting at the Montclair First Ward District 3 polling place for 17 years. Even with presidential elections, we never had a line longer than two or three people. This morning, at 6:48, there was a line of 36 citizens in front of us, many of them New York commuters. One of the poll workers said the normal turnout in this 1,000-voter district for a presidential election was 500 or 600, and she expected "close to 1,000'' today. It took 31 minutes to get through the line, get into the voting booth and make my choice -- time very well spent.

A few notes on a clean-the-notebook-out Election Day, starting with the most important note of my season:

• I DON'T CARE HOW LONG THE LINES ARE TODAY, AND THEY WILL BE LONG. VOTE. The other day, I texted a few NFL players to ask who they supported in the presidential election. Some said Obama, some said McCain, some said I'd rather not say, which was fine. Then I got four more texts from New Orleans linebacker Scott Fujita when I asked why he thought it was important for the populace to vote today. He made a crack about being a political-science major at Cal, and so look out for a strong opinion. It's a superb opinion.

"A lot of people think their vote won't make a difference, or that their voice will never be heard,'' Fujita texted. "But if we all felt that way, then the system would be broken. There's a lot more good than bad in this country, and the only way to begin to fix what's bad is to get out and vote. Also, suffrage rights didn't come without incredible struggle for a lot of people in this country -- women and blacks in particular. To me, not voting would be a huge slap in their faces.''

Couldn't have said it better, Scott.

• IT'S HARD TO ARGUE WITH THE BROWNS' DECISION -- WHOEVER MADE IT. Fairness says Derek Anderson should get longer than eight games after getting a guaranteed $13 million in the offseason from Cleveland, especially because heir-to-the-throne Brady Quinn was so shaky playing with the No. 1 offense this summer. But Anderson's 49.8-percent passing through a half-season and league-low 68.9 rating was too much for the team to ignore.

There were whispers around the team Monday night that the decision may not have been coach Romeo Crennel's, which I'll be looking into as the day goes on. Regardless, Anderson has shown class throughout this difficult season. He knows he hasn't been good enough; the wobbly and horribly thrown interception to Terrell Suggs that was returned for a touchdown to clinch the 37-27 loss to Baltimore Sunday brought out the boo-birds at home and made an Anderson start problematic at home against Denver on Thursday night.

But he also knows he should have gotten more help from his receivers. Braylon Edwards leads all NFL receivers with 12 drops (and not much accountability, quite frankly), fellow starter Donte' Stallworth has missed five games due to injury, and Kellen Winslow has been embroiled in controversy and only marginally effective. And as the news broke late Monday afternoon in a short week that Anderson had been benched, Quinn was on his way to a meeting with the head coach ... when he was intercepted by Anderson, who told Quinn he was the new starting quarterback.

• BLOGGERS AND E-MAILERS, LET ME HEAD YOU OFF AT THE PASS ON THIS ONE. Don't start, please, with the bleating that the Browns should have traded Anderson for as much as they could have gotten in the offseason. The Browns had been looking for a competent quarterback for the nine years of their rebirth, and to think about trading away the best one they'd had -- after he'd thrown for 3,787 yards and 29 touchdowns and led Cleveland to 10 wins -- would be absurd. "He saved all of our jobs,'' GM Phil Savage said last summer. Anderson's been lousy, but don't rewrite history and say he should have been dealt.

• BYRON LEFTWICH WAS THE MAN LAST NIGHT. How, possibly, did this guy sit out there for so long without a team grabbing him this offseason? Leftwich engineered the 23-6 win over Washington at FedEx Field. Ben Roethlisberger, in the first two quarters before leaving with a bum shoulder: 5-17, 50 yards, no touchdown, one interception, 15.1 rating. Leftwich in the last two quarters: 7-10, 129 yards, one touchdown, no interceptions, 145.8 rating.

Leftwich threw a 16-yard sideline laser to Santonio Holmes, a deep 50-yard go-route rainbow to Nate Washington and a 25-yard hook-shot job under heavy pressure to Mewelde Moore. "Everybody's gonna try to make this about me,'' Leftwich said after the game. "I just tried to get the ball into my playmakers' hands ... I truly don't know this offense yet, and I don't get a chance to practice with the first team much.''

Pittsburgh offensive coordinator Bruce Arians did the smart thing. He didn't limit Leftwich's play-calls because of his inexperience in the offense, feeling if the Steelers put plays in the gameplan that were good plays to work against Washington, he wasn't going to dial it back because he had his backup in there. "I'm gonna let you wing this ball around. Let's have fun,'' Arians told him at halftime. And Leftwich, when it was over, said of Arians: "I'm thankful he had enough confidence in me to run anything and everything.''

• HOW WAS CHRIS HORTON THE 249TH PICK OF THE DRAFT LAST YEAR? I mean, are you kidding me with this kid? Thirty-two teams passed on this instinctive, bruising, blitzing safety through six rounds? Horton is one of the dozen best rookies in football this year, and the way he tormented the Steelers shows what an inexact science scouting is. At 6-foot-1, 212 pounds, running a 4.55 40-yard dash, with 28 Pac-10 starts ... If I were a personnel director, I'd be asking my regional scouts out west why they didn't have Horton higher on their lists.

• SOMEONE PLEASE SEND FRED TAYLOR A LIFELINE. After the third game of the season, Taylor was 97 yards from the 11,000-rushing-yard plateau. In the next five games, here are Taylor's rushing totals: 25 yards, 19, 10, 24, 12. He's still three yards away. And that's the story of the Jacksonville season. If the Jags can't run, they can't win, because they're just not explosive enough in the passing game.

• KYLE WILLIAMS. TONY BROWN. Those are two names you should know. I haven't had good reason to get them in my column in the past three or four weeks, but Williams and Browns are run-stuffing defensive tackles who get no pub playing alongside a more famous defensive tackle: Marcus Stroud in Buffalo (Williams) and Albert Haynesworth in Tennessee (Brown). I just thought you should know those laboring in the trenches help their teams win too, even if they're not celebrated much.

• DARRELLE REVIS, KRIS JENKINS. Revis was terrific Sunday at Buffalo, with a strip sack early and a clinching interception late. He's becoming a force for every offensive coordinator to contend with. Jenkins is more responsible than anyone on the Jets for their improvement. After eight games last year, they were 1-7, and they're 5-3 this year. The Jets allowed 4.17 yards per rush last year. That number is 3.12 this year. We all wondered if Jenkins would be a great noseman, because he'd played in the 4-3 in Carolina his entire career. So far, he's been among the best two or three defensive linemen in the league.

• JIM KELLY'S FOOTBALL MISSION. Mentioned this the other night on NBC: Kelly, the former Buffalo quarterback, thinks he has a group together that's wealthy enough to buy the Bills from 90-year-old owner Ralph Wilson, and he'd be dedicated to keeping the Bills in Western New York for the rest of his life.

I've had a few e-mailers and people in the business tell me, in effect, Get real. Kelly doesn't have buddies with $800 million, or whatever it'll take to satisfy Wilson or his heirs. Maybe. Maybe not. But I'll just say this: In some ways, the Bills have become like the Packers. The economy in Western New York is so downtrodden that the football team has almost become more important than the biggest corporation, and those from the area who have left to make millions haven't lost their love for the team they still root for every Sunday.

So don't be surprised if a couple of sugar daddies have hundreds of millions to throw in the pot to keep the Bills in the area. I also think if Wilson or his family would sell to anyone for a little bit below the market, they'd sell to a man who quarterbacked the team to its greatest run in history and whose every fiber will be dedicated to keeping the team in the area.

• JIM FASSEL ON PATS-COLTS. Fassel did the 18-15 Indy win on Westwood One radio the other night, and he loved the game. "Great, great game,'' he said. "You think without [Tom] Brady the rivalry would really suffer, but you can't see a much better game than that one. New England has four 12-play-plus drives. Indianapolis has Manning playing for their season. Either team could have won.

"People thought the Patriots were dead with Matt Cassel playing, but I remember when Brady came in that first year [2001], and he was scrambling and dinkin' and dunkin.' Same philosophy now. Same gameplan. And in this game, I saw stuff out of Cassel I didn't see when I did the Patriots against San Diego a couple of weeks ago. He drops back, and on his fifth step, bang, he hits a receiver right between the numbers with authority. New England will be a tough team to beat in the playoffs.''