Tarvaris Jackson for Brady Quinn?

The Browns are looking to deal Brady Quinn and want a quarterback in exchange.

Tarvaris Jackson is essentially done in Minnesota, whether or not Brett Favre returns.

So, why not?

I'm not as low on Quinn as others are -- playing for that awful Cleveland team will make anyone look bad. I don't know if his 53.2% completion percentage and 5.2 yards per attempt last year were his fault of the fault of his receivers, but he avoids turnovers (just nine interceptions in 353 career attempts and four fumbles on 45 career "touches") and he just looked too good in college to be a complete NFL bust. Give him Sidney Rice, Bernard Berrian, and Visanthe Shiancoe to throw to and Adrian Peterson (and LaDanian Tomlinson?) to hand off to, and he'll have to look better.

Besides, the Browns already have Seneca Wallace. With T-Jack, they could have the most mobile quarterbacking in the league, which they'll probably need.

An Emmy-winning performance

While there's little outright complaining, there seems to be an undercurrent of mild grousing about the Vikings "only" beating the Lions 27-10 on Sunday and not putting the game out of reach until the 4th quarter. In fact, it seems like the Vikings always struggle with the Lions, despite coming out on top in each of the last five meetings between the teams.

My opinion is that a 17-point win is a 17-point win. The Vikings played just fine in Sunday's game, even if it took a while to make the game a pseudo-laugher. Consider some of the other games this past week that matched two teams where one was thought to be clearly superior than the other and yet barely eked out a win:

Miami 25, Tampa Bay 23
New Orleans 28, St. Louis 23

and a few that rank as outright upsets:

Washington 27, Denver 17
Cincinnati 18, Pittsburgh 12
Carolina 28, Atlanta 19
Green Bay 17, Dallas 7

And arguably the New England/Indianapolis and San Diego/Philadelphia games. Against those, I'll take a 27-10 victory any day.

* After the Vikings, my favorite three offenses to watch this season are, in order: Miami (love the Wildcat), New Orleans (for its sheer firepower), and -- wait for it -- Cleveland.

Watching the Browns' "offense" is like watching a good disaster movie, but without the obligatory hot chick. (I will still watch The Day After Tomorrow just to see Emmy Rossum.) I honestly think that Brady Quinn still has some potential in the league and could be a nice pickup for a team (possibly a team in purple) in a couple years when he finishes out his rookie contract, but the combination of terrible play calling (even MNF resident cheerleader Jon Gruden was criticizing the 827th one-yard route the Browns called last night), terrible receivers, and terrible offensive line play give him zero chance to succeed. Until that changes, the Browns offer better comedy than anything Jay Leno can provide on late-night TV.

* 20 carries for 41 yards Thursday for Matt Forte, making his season average 3.4 yards per carry. Good thing Jay Cutler will improve the running game in Chicago!

* Sorry, I'm still thinking of Emmy Rossum. I have to go now...

The bad, the bad, and the ugly

I'm out of town until Saturday. With the Vikings having a bye and sitting pretty at 7-1, I thought I'd have some fun at the expense of the bad -- really, really bad -- teams in the NFL.

* The Browns fired their GM, who was apparently picked by their coach (shouldn't that be the other way around?) and won't start Brady Quinn because they don't want him earning an $11 million bonus if he takes 70% of his team's snaps. Derek Anderson, meanwhile, is historically bad.

* When the Chiefs wanted to get younger two years ago, they traded 26-year-old Jared Allen to the Vikings. That was confusing. Trading 33-year-old Tony Gonzalez made more sense, though I couldn't figure out why you'd want to trade possibly the best tight end ever and a pillar of your community. Gonzalez, for the record, trails only Roddy White in receptions and receiving yards for the Falcons. But at least the Chiefs got younger, right?

Well...as if gobbling up 29-year-old Bobby Wade after the Vikings waived him, the Chiefs have claimed 31-year-old Chris Chambers. If their plan is to trade away great receivers and acquire mediocre ones, then they're right on target...

* It was about what you'd expect in a Rams vs. Lions matchup: With Detroit trailing 3-0, Matthew Stafford threw an interception into the end zone. Defensive back James Butler took the ball out of the end zone, ran back in to avoid a tackler, where he was then tackled by Kevin Smith. 3-2. It's the second time I can recall an offensive player scoring a safety. Philadelphia wide receiver Charles Johnson did it in this game, 10 years ago.

* If he had enough attempts to qualify, Vince Young would be the lowest-rated passer among active quarterbacks (69.0). He's also 18-11 as a starter. I know passer rating doesn't include rushing yards, but that's still messed up...

* The Redskins made it through the "easy" part of their schedule -- Giants, Rams, Lions, Bucs, Panthers, Chiefs -- with a 2-4 record. Those teams have a combined 11-34 record. Counting their game against Philadelphia last week, their next six opponents -- Eagles, Falcons, Broncos, Cowboys, Eagles, Saints -- have a combined 32-10 record. Can you say "2-10 record"?

* And oh, those Buccaneers. They rank 28th in the league in scoring, but that should be nothing new to Tampa Bay fans. Amazingly, in 34 years, the Bucs have only ranked in the top 10 in scoring once, in 2000.

But hey, at least their coach doesn't assault women.

Vikings enforce Brown-out

Now that's how you start a season.

Adrian Peterson had a great day, with a highlight-reel 64-yard run to put the effective nail in the coffin, and the defense stuffed the Browns' offense until a late, garbage-time TD. The quarterbacking and special teams? Well, that's another matter. But first the good.

Adrian Peterson. What more is there to say? Even if you want to stick AP with the "inconsistent" label, he had 116 yards on 24 carries, a 4.8 average, if you take away his 64-yarder. And boy, was that run a thing of beauty, especially the part where he casually threw aside the last Cleveland defender and then turned on the jets to outrun everyone to the end zone. Right now, there's definitely nobody in the NFL with his combination of strength and speed, and there might not have ever been anyone with his physical skills. And to think some idiots wanted the Vikings to take Brady Quinn in the 2007 draft...

("Some idiots" should include a link to my post on my SportingNews blog dating back to the '07 draft where I expounded just that idea. But SN is unavailable due to heavy traffic related to the start of the NFL season. Yet another good reason why I don't use that blog any more.)

The defense. Apart from that late Cleveland TD, when mostly backups were in the game, the defense allowed just 188 yards, forced three fumbles and a pick, and sacked Quinn five times. This unit looked lights out in the preseason and, apart from a 73-yard Cleveland drive in the second quarter, the first unit stymied the Browns all day long. (But see below.)

The rookies. I may be coming around on Percy Harvin. With Bernard Berrian out, he was practically our #1 receiver, and while his numbers -- 3 catches for 36 yards (and a TD) and 2 rushes for 22 yards -- weren't huge, he had that "exciting" look every time he touched the ball. His 33-yard average on three kick returns wasn't too shabby, either.

Phil Loadholt also looked good at right tackle. I'll admit to not paying too much attention to line play, but he did nothing to embarrass himself (unlike Ryan Cook most of last year) and when I did pay attention to him, he seemed to handle his man cleanly. A key factor in my appreciation for Percy Harvin will be the play of Phil Loadholt, to make me feel better about the team passing on Michael Oher in the first round. So far, so good.

And while he's not a rookie, how about Darius Reynaud? Oh my goodness, we might have a kick returner and a punt returner! And to think we gave up on Maurice Hicks...

Those were the good. Then there's the not-so-good:

Punt coverage. Let's get this one out of the way. Really, apart from that second-quarter TD return by Josh Cribbs, who's maybe the best return man in the game, the coverage units did pretty well. Cribbs' other two punt returns netted exactly zero total yards, and he managed just 23.3 yards on six kickoff returns. But hoo boy, did it seem like more of the same after that TD. I'll still hold my breath every time Chris Kluwe boots one...

The rush defense. OK, so they weren't exactly shredded, but how on earth does Jamal freakin' Lewis manage 5.2 yards per carry against us? Unacceptable!

Him. Wasn't Brett Favre supposed to stretch the field and keep the defense from stacking the line against Adrian Peterson (who never had any good rushing games with our usual assortment of medicore QBs)? Memory may fail me, but I can only recall about three or four passes that went longer than 10 yards downfield, with a lot of dump-offs and short passes and way too many sacks (4) for the number of dropbacks (25). I'd say two of the sacks weren't Favre's fault, but on the other two (the first two, if I recall), he had plenty of time.

Now, there are a few legitimate reasons for Favre's mediocre play. One is, as previously mentioned, the lack of Bernard Berrian. And Brian Billick (we'll get back to him in a minute) brought up a semi-good point when he mentioned that the reason Favre took one of his sacks was so that he wouldn't toss up one of his well-known no-chance passes for a sure-fire turnover. Finally, with Peterson running the ball like he did and the defense playing as well as it did, Favre didn't need to take big risks and go down the field with any risky plays; to his credit, I didn't see any of those "oh no"-type passes from Favre.

But if he's not going to provide an extra dimension to the passing game, why is Brett Favre here? Did he do anything today that Tarvaris Jackson or Sage Rosenfels couldn't have done? We'll never know, of course, but if all we wanted from a QB is 110 passing yards per game, we sure didn't need to cough up $25 million for it. Last year, the Vikings' lowest net passing yards in a single games (subtracting sacks) was 104. Today, it was 85. This is progress?

(And going back to Brian Billick...I believe he had three "That's just Brett being Brett"s, two "He's only been here a month"s, and two or three "He needs to work with his receivers"es. Let the excuses begin continue!)

Cleveland's probably not a good team. Still, it's good to know that even when the QB is barely contributing, the Vikings can put up 34 points. It was a team effort -- offense, defense, and special teams -- and if the team looks like this all year long, I won't be disappointed.