Perhaps Mary Kay Cabot would do it, I thought, considering that she covers the Browns beat for the Cleveland Plain-Dealer.

Or perhaps one of our good friends over at the Orange & Brown Report would do it, considering they always seem to be out in front of important Browns news.

Or maybe ProFootballTalk would break the news, considering their ever-growing number of league and team sources, plus their obvious ins with agents around the league.

Well guess what…had I bet any money on any of those three options breaking the news, I would have lost. I also would have failed to realize that there is a hot new reporter in Berea breaking the important Browns news these days.

Follow the links to StubHub for great deals on Cleveland Browns tickets and all NFL tickets.

And you can follow him at http://twitter.com/terrellowens.

Yes, ladies and gentleman, the following tweet from the NFL’s most divisive receiver was the first public acknowledgement of what we all already assumed anyway: that Brady Quinn will be the starting QB for the Cleveland Browns in 2009.

Congrats 2 Brady Quinn 4 starting job w/Cleveland Browns!!

And I know this because shortly after Owens’ tweet was posted, ProFootballTalk and the Plain-Dealer (via the aforementioned Cabot) posted the news that Quinn would be the starter:

Brady Quinn has won the quarterback competition and will start Sunday’s game against the Vikings, a league source told The Plain Dealer today.

There is no word on whether or not Terrell Owens was, in fact, the league source that confirmed the news to Cabot, but she does mention PFT’s reference of T.O.’s tweet at the end of her short article. Does that strike anyone else as odd? 

For the record, I enjoy Cabot’s work and think she does as good a job as she can considering the tight-lipped nature of the current Browns administration, so my observations here are somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Still, it is rare that you see a beat reporter such as Cabot provide attribution to a tweet and a blog, inferring that they are relevant in the breaking of the most important story on her turf this offseason.

Seen another way, maybe it is just a sign of these twitterrific times we live in and an implicit commendation for the rapid rise of PFT from “just a blog” to a legitimate NFL news and rumor site.

Either way, it does amuse me that the identity of the Browns starting QB could not even be kept a secret for more than 24 hours after Eric Mangini reportedly met with Quinn and Derek Anderson to inform them of his decision. Not that I thought it would stay a secret…but I did at least expect it to stay private a little longer than it did.

I actually thought it was a good idea by Mangini to keep it a secret as long as possible. There aren’t many advantages the Browns have going into Sunday’s game against the Vikings, so he might as well hold onto every one he can, regardless of how small or insignificant.

Nonetheless, the cat now appears to be out of the bag, and Brady Biceps can assume complete leadership over the offense.

I think it’s the right move, all things considered, and hope that he begins to fulfill the promise that made him a 1st round selection. Most importantly, I hope the Browns coaching staff is committed to sticking with him. The last thing I want to see is another frustrating game of musical quarterback chairs like we saw last year.

This is Brady’s time, and we should know at the end of 2009 whether we have a franchise QB or a 1st round bust. I’m hoping for the former and think it’s time for the Browns to go all-in and find out.

**********

* – Terrell Owens photo credit: The Onion

* – Brady Quinn photo credit: The Play in California

The picture to the left is not from today’s presser, but you can find it at newyorkjets.com.  I just recently looked at two reports from a couple of pretty popular sports websites. Curiously, the reports paint drastically different pictures of Favre’s remarks.

According to the ESPN.com account, Brett Favre maintained his outright denial that he helped the Detroit Lions. It is a very short blurb and only includes one quote from Favre. As reported on ProFootballTalk.com, this is the first time that ESPN has touched the story — they refused to report anything about it up until now. It appears that they continue to not embrace the fact that Glazer’s original report could be true, based on how they shade the report of Favre’s news conference.  (Update: And, in fact, PFT appears to have thought the same thing about the ESPN.com account.  Upon checking back at PFT after posting this item, we saw this new post lambasting ESPN.com for using just the one quote and not reporting the entire story.)

ProFootballTalk.com, however, issued a much different reaction to the Brett Favre news conference, with much more detail included. While the ESPN.com story only quotes Favre as saying that he didn’t “given them any game-planning” and that he hasn’t been in the offense for over a year, ProFootballTalk.com breaks down some other quotes that they claim probably seemed “innocuous” to Favre as he was saying them — but that seem to contradict his statement to Peter King on Sunday night that the report was “total B.S.” Head on over to ProFootballTalk to read their post for yourself. It is pretty interesting.

So what the hell are we to believe?

We know that Brett Favre did, in fact, talk with Matt Millen and that there were other people in the room. And we know that he discussed football matters. It seems reasonable to believe that he was providing information that could be at least peripherally useful to the Detroit coaching staff as it prepared for the game against the Packers.

So why did ESPN.com fail to acknowledge this in its report? Is there something more to ESPN’s seeming position that Glazer’s original report is false? I am beginning to think that the reporting of the story is starting to become an even bigger and more interesting issue than the actual story itself.

One thing is for sure: the mere fact that Brett Favre discussed whatever information he had regarding the Green Bay Packers with the Detroit Lions would piss me off if I was a Packers fan. I realize that things did not end well with the current Packers regime, but shouldn’t a two-decades-long career that included many more highs than lows compel Brett Favre to take the high road and just not get involved in this mess? Besides, his beef is with management, not with his ex-teammates, or so I would presume. By helping the Detroit Lions out, regardless of how specific or current or useful the information was that he discussed, isn’t he basically taking a knife and figuratively sticking it in the backs’ of his former teammates?

Ryan Russel was right in one of his first posts on Midwest Sports Fans, that Brett Favre has made a habit late in his career of tarnishing his legacy. Even as a non-Packers fan, I was always a fan of Brett Favre and took his side, for the most part, with regard to the way his exit from Green Bay happened this offseason. Now I am just getting sick and tired of the constant coverage of Brett Favre for things that are not related to his actual play on the field. And he is by no means a victim — he brings it upon himself.

Who knows why ESPN.com is taking such a different slant on this story from ProFootballTalk. And Who knows what the full truth is either. All we do know is that Brett Favre has become newsworthy again for off-field, behind-the-scenes antics that are in dispute by the parties and reporters that are involved. For that reason alone I fault him, and I wish that he would either just go away for good or give us all a break and keep his mouth shut off the field.

(And by the way, I just realized that I typed an entire post about Brett Favre without mentioning the name “New York Jets” once. That must make Jets fans real happy. Yeah, the focus of “their” quarterback is definitely in the right place.)

[tags]brett favre, detroit lions, green bay packers, espn, profootballtalk[/tags]