…okay, not really. But LeBron did say recently that he could succeed in NFL if he put in the time and Browns head coach Eric Mangini has a helmet waiting for him if he ever wants to give it a try.

From ESPN.com:

“If I put all my time and commitment into it, if I dedicated myself to the game of football, I could be really good,” he said Tuesday night, “no matter what team I was on.”

Mangini agreed, calling James “a freak athletically” and said the 6-foot-8, 260-pounder could be dangerous at tight end, wide receiver or even outside linebacker.

Quarterback Brady Quinn also heard about James’ football fetish. He would love to have a target to throw to like James in the red zone.
“That’d be great,” Quinn said. “Tell him to suit up and let us know, we’ll get him working. Obviously he’s an incredibly talented athlete. If he wants to try to play a little bit now, we’d be more than willing to pick him up.”

Browns nose tackle Shaun Rogers isn’t convinced James, as great as he is, could step into the NFL and be able to handle the pounding.
“I heard that comment,” Rogers said. “I have mixed emotions about that. A great athlete? Yes. A football player? No.”

Rogers then looked into TV cameras.

“Yeah LeBron, I said it,” he said. “It’s a punishing game. I just don’t think you can step off the basketball court after not going through this year in and year out and just play football. From that standpoint, I just don’t think it’s possible. You have to weather and condition your body to take this punishment.”

That’s all the Cavs and the city of Cleveland needs: For LeBron hurt playing for a 1-8 Browns team going nowhere fast.

Given how gifted an athlete James is, I could see him succeeding in the NFL if he put in the time. But I agree with Rogers in that he couldn’t just step onto the field this Sunday and have an impact. For starters, he’s never run a pro route and he’s never read a defense. If he was told to just run straight down the field and then look for the ball, I could see him making a play or two. But he’d be lost if he were to start a game without practicing and I could only imagine him getting laid out going across the middle.

The front office for the Cavs would rather die than see this come to fruition, but I would love to see LeBron play for just one game to see how he’d do – even if it were just for a couple of plays.

Of course, that would require Brady Quinn to throw a pass longer than three yards in bounds, which is something I seriously doubt he could handle.

Eleven first downs, 160 total yards and zero points.

After two weeks to prepare for their opposition, that’s what the Cleveland Browns produced on Monday night in a 16-0 loss to the Baltimore Ravens.

Nobody should be surprised by the outcome of Monday night’s game in Cleveland. Everyone knew that the Browns were awful entering the game, but to actually watch that miserable excuse of a team stumble over themselves for 60 minutes is rather amazing. It’s like a car wreck – you just can’t look away.

Brady Quinn is bad, so bad that it’s safe to say that he has zero chance of becoming anything resembling a decent starting quarterback in the NFL. I’m fully aware that he has no talent around him, but I dare anyone to watch that kid play for entire game and tell me he has any shot of success in this league. His own coaching staff doesn’t trust him to throw the ball further than two feet and I wouldn’t either. The Monday Night Football crew kept begging for the Browns to throw the ball vertically and whenever Quinn did, he was either picked off or was so far off the mark with his passes that there wasn’t a receiver within 20 yards of where the ball ended up.

Again, I know that he doesn’t have anyone to throw to but there’s just no excuse for being that inept. The Browns didn’t even reach the Ravens’ 40-yard line tonight and don’t forget that this was a Baltimore defense that has struggled at times this year stopping the pass. On multiple occasions late in the game when he was trying to make a feeble attempt at throwing deep, Quinn tossed the ball completely out of bounds. That means he’s so inaccurate with his throws that he can’t even keep the ball in play. He even overthrew a receiver on a screen pass, which is so mind-boggling that it pisses me off just thinking about it.

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Here’s how I see things 1-32 in the NFL after eight weeks in the books:

1. New Orleans Saints (7-0)
The Saints have the most balanced offensive attack in the NFL, have been a more aggressive and opportunistic defense under new coordinator Gregg Williams and are off to their best start in franchise history. There is a lot of season left, but this team has a Super Bowl-feeling about them.

2. Indianapolis Colts (7-0)
I don’t know if the 49ers necessarily laid out a blueprint on how to stop Peyton Manning and the Colts, but they at least showed how to contain the potent Indy offense for four quarters.

3. Minnesota Vikings (7-1)
I bet Brett Favre and Jared Allen wish they could play the Packers every week, because they’ve owned Green Bay in two games this season.

4. Denver Broncos (6-1)
Teams always learn more from losses than they do wins, so it’ll be interesting to see how Josh McDaniels and his coaching staff adjusts heading into Monday night against the Steelers.

5. New England Patriots (5-2)
We’ll see what kind of team the Pats are over their next five games: vs. Miami, at Indy, vs. the Jets and at New Orleans. Is Tom Brady back to his usual self or did he just benefit from putting up outrageous numbers against two bad teams in the Titans and Bucs the past two games?

6. Cincinnati Bengals (5-2)
The Bengals should be fresh coming off their bye, but they face two opponents in the Ravens and Steelers in the next two weeks that are looking to avenge losses to Cincinnati earlier in the season. Can the Bengals at least earn a split to stay atop the AFC North?

7. Pittsburgh Steelers (5-2)
The Steelers are feeling good after beating the Vikings two weeks ago and then getting Week 8 off. But they travel to Denver and then host Cincinnati the next two weeks, so we’ll see whether or not their record isn’t just a byproduct of facing bad teams like the Titans, Lions, Browns and the ever-inconsistent Chargers.

8. Dallas Cowboys (6-2)
Wade Phillips’ defense is starting to do a better job of creating turnovers and getting pressure on the quarterback. In the Cowboys’ last two games, they’ve racked up five takeaways and seven sacks. It’s no surprise that Dallas won both of those games and they’ll need more of the same when they travel to Philadelphia on Sunday night.

9. Philadelphia Eagles (5-2)
What an impressive win last Sunday as the Eagles thumped the Giants in every facet of the game. Can they do it again this week in another big divisional test?

10. New York Giants (5-3)
I don’t know what to make of this team – are they suffering from injuries or have the last three weeks been the norm? To date, the G-Men only have one win against a winning team, which came in Week 2 against the Cowboys. Their four other victories came against the Redskins, Bucs, Chiefs and Raiders. Yikes.

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According to a report by the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Browns owner Randy Lerner said that Eric Mangini’s job is safe heading into the team’s bye week, but also noted that he was sick about their 1-7 record. Lerner also said that the Browns’ quarterback situation “doesn’t seem sensible” and that he may bring in a team president to overlook Mangini and GM George Kokonis.

Considering Mangini only has one offseason under his belt in Cleveland, he deserves more time. He’s essentially not working with the roster that he wants yet, so it makes sense that Lerner won’t pull the plug on him after only eight games.

That said, Mangini has to get this team to at least be competitive or else nobody will blame Lerner for scrapping the whole thing and starting from scratch again in the offseason. That might sound nauseating to Browns fans, but if Mangini is in over his head, then why waste one or two more years?

The Browns are a putrid 1-7. After giving a good Cincinnati team a run for its money in Week 4, Cleveland has scored a combined 29 points in four games. That’s barely a touchdown a game, which is staggering. Making matters worse, Mangini has already made one quarterback change this year switching from Brady Quinn to Derek Anderson, and may have to make another as Anderson continues to drive the Browns further into NFL purgatory. (He has failed to throw for over 100 yards in four of the six games he’s played in this season.)

Cleveland isn’t going to even sniff the playoffs this season, but what Lerner needs to see is a team that competes. If the players quit on Mangini, he may never get them back and then it’ll be time to make a change. He deserves another offseason to build the roster he wants, but at the same time he better earn it over the next eight games.

Following the Browns’ ugly 30-6 loss to the Bears on Sunday, running back Jamal Lewis said that he plans to retire after the season.

While he claims it wasn’t just a statement made in the heat of the moment, nobody would blame Lewis if it were. Lewis is 30, has seen his play drop quite a bit this year and he’s stuck on a morbid franchise. So why stick around?

I honestly don’t know how the Browns have won a game this year. Their defense is bad, but it pails in comparison to how atrocious Derek Anderson and the offense is, which turned the ball over five times on Sunday. Chicago’s secondary has been shredded at times this season, yet Anderson found a way to only complete 6-of-17 pass attempts for a measly 76 yards. Oh, and he also threw two interceptions and fumbled once.

I’m sure someone will raise the question of whether or not Brady Quinn should resume the starting spot over Anderson next week. But Quinn has already shown that he’s just as incapable of running the offense as Anderson is, so does it really matter? If I were a Cleveland fan (and I just threw up a little at the mere thought of that), I’d rather see Brett Ratliff given a chance to start before Quinn is given a second opportunity.

About the only reason to watch the Browns these days is to see whether or not defensive coordinator Rob Ryan will get in a fight with anyone on the sidelines. He and Jay Cutler went at it (verbally, of course) on Sunday and it was the only entertainment Cleveland provided all day.

According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the Cleveland Browns are not considering a change at quarterback, which means Derek Anderson will remain the team’s starter.

The Browns are damned if they do, damned if they don’t in this situation. In Brady Quinn, they had a quarterback that didn’t make wise decisions, couldn’t throw the ball vertically, couldn’t hit receivers in stride and couldn’t lead the offense. In Anderson, they have a quarterback that doesn’t make wise decisions, can’t lead the offense and is completely turnover prone. But hey, at least he can throw the ball vertically; sometimes it’s directly to the other team, but vertical nonetheless.

Even though Anderson is incapable of moving the offense, Eric Mangini has to stick with him at this point because if he goes back to Quinn than it’s going to look like he has less of a handle on the situation than he already does. The bottom line is that Cleveland has one of the most inept offenses in the NFL and they don’t have a quarterback on the roster that can guide them out of the muck.

Unless…Brett Ratliff anyone?

The Eagles acquired linebacker Will Witherspoon from the Rams at the trade deadline on Tuesday. In exchange for Witherspoon, St. Louis acquired wide receiver Brandon Gibson and a 2010 fifth round pick.

Witherspoon had been playing the weak side linebacker position for the Rams, but he has experience in the middle, which has been a weakness for the Eagles since Stewart Bradley was lost for the season in training camp. Stewart’s replacements, Jeremiah Trotter and Omar Gaither, are fine against the run but have been a liability in coverage.

Gibson was a sixth round pick of the Eagles’ in April. He impressed Philadelphia’s coaching staff in training camp, but was never going to see the field with DeSean Jackson, Jeremy Maclin and others in front of him. St. Louis has had a major need at receiver, especially since Laurent Robinson was lost for the year with a knee injury.

As expected, the trade deadline came and went without any big names being dealt. Rumors circulated last week that Brady Quinn, Joshua Cribbs and/or Terrell Owens might be traded, but nothing came to fruition.

The NFL trade deadline is today and not much is expected to happen because, well, nothing usually happens.

Here are a few reasons why:

- The deadline occurs after Week 6 and good luck getting any head coach to say that the season is over when there are still 10 games left on the schedule. Teams haven’t thrown in the towel yet and still believe the players they have on their roster give them the best chance to win. And if teams with losing records aren’t willing to deal, how are teams with the winning records supposed to improve themselves in an attempt to make the playoffs?

- Not every player is a match for a team’s offensive or defensive system. Football isn’t like baseball where the second base position in Milwaukee is the same as the second base position in San Francisco. It takes players weeks, if not months, if not seasons to learn a new system, so knowing that they can’t get a quick return on their investment, teams are reluctant to acquire new players. Take the Bears and Gaines Adams for example. Chicago acquired him on Friday night from Tampa Bay, but didn’t even bother activating him for Sunday night’s game against the Falcons because they knew he wouldn’t be ready to play in their system. The Falcons traded for cornerback Ty Hill (a former starter for the Rams) right before the season started and still haven’t played him yet.

- Unless an entirely new staff takes over in the offseason (i.e. Cleveland and Tampa Bay), coaches aren’t willing to give up on the players they drafted. You hear the term “his player” used all the time in the NFL. Come hell or high water, a coach is going to fight for the player he drafted (especially if they were a first day pick), because they don’t want to see the fruits of their labor have success anywhere else.

So even if you hear the names Brady Quinn, Josh Cribbs and Terrell Owens thrown around today, don’t buy into the hype that they’ll be traded because those players will likely be wearing the same uniforms come Sunday.

There is growing speculation out of Cleveland that the Browns will deal quarterback Brady Quinn before the October 20 trade deadline. Quinn won the Browns’ starting quarterback job in preseason but struggled mightily once the regular season started and was replaced by Derek Anderson.

Considering the Browns traded Kellen Winslow to the Buccaneers this offseason and Braylon Edwards to the Jets last week, it’s clear that the team has no reservations about dealing former first round picks. So the rumor of Quinn being shipped out of town certainly holds water.

Despite his brutal 2-for-17 passing performance against the Bills last Sunday, Anderson has shown that he can move the offense better than Quinn can. Anderson is turnover prone, but he has the strong arm that head coach Eric Mangini covets. Quinn, on the other hand, displayed poor pocket awareness and the inability to hit receivers in stride during the first few weeks of the season.

But while a trade makes sense for the Browns (Mangini reportedly favors former Jet Brett Ratliff as his backup, making Quinn even more expendable), they just don’t happen that often midseason. I realize Cleveland just dealt Edwards to New York last week, but his recent off-field incident and growing tension with management expedited that process.

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