In an announcement akin to holding a Christmas present that feels like it’s jeans and opening it to find out that, yep, it’s jeans, the Carolina Panthers have made rookie Cam Newton their official Week 1 starter against the Arizona Cardinals. To date, Newton has thrown one (1) 10-yard touchdown pass in handful of preseason appearances, but according to Panthers head coach Ron Rivera, that speaks for itself.

“It speaks for itself,” Rivera said. “With what Cam’s done and the direction we’re headed with this football team, in all honesty he is our starter. He is going to grow as a starter and we’re going to grow as a football team. It’s not just about him. It’s about the rest of us growing in our system.

“We didn’t draft Cam to the be savior. We drafted him to help lead this football team.”

Derek Anderson will be his back-up, with Jimmy Clausen sitting in the locker room somewhere practicing his John 16:33 facepaint, because Carolina totally needed a Tim Tebow that no one wants.

Unless you count the time he sang Justin Bieber in public, nothing about Cam Newton’s preseason was damning. Normal rookie mistakes, like locking onto receivers early, throwing into double-coverage and not being able to accurately hit a three-man target. He’s got a strong arm, he moves well and he looks more confident every time he plays … and if the Panthers really wanted the lowest-possible-rent Michael Vick, why not go ahead and start him?

“I did but I didn’t expect anything given to me. It doesn’t stop here. I can’t sit back and say I’ve arrived because we have a long way to go,” said Newton.

Some people are looking at the situation a little differently.

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Only three seasons ago, Arizona Cardinals QB Derek Anderson had a career season with the Cleveland Browns, passing for over 3,700 yards and 29 touchdowns. He was the belle of the NFL ball, as teams were kicking his tires in trade rumors and it looked like he was poised to be the next breakout surprise. Unfortunately for Anderson, the 2008 season started. Then the 2009 season. It’s pretty much been one giant snowball of suck for the poor guy since then, and it all came to a head last night after the Cardinals suffered a 27-6 beating at the hands of the equally underperforming San Francisco 49ers.

During the postgame press conference, a reporter asked Anderson what appeared to be so funny between him and teammate Deuce Litui as the two were laughing on the sidelines in the 4th quarter as their team was losing by three scores. Anderson’s response went about as expected, as he defended himself and denied laughing. Unfortunately, the camera showed him laughing and the reporter kept going, leading to this heated Anderson response:

“I’m just telling you right now what I do every single week. Every single week, I put my heart and soul into this. I study my ass off. I don’t go out there and laugh. It’s not funny. Nothing’s funny to me. I don’t want to go out there and get embarrassed on Monday Night Football in front of everybody.”

That reminds me of when I asked my parents for Transformers one Christmas and they got me Gobots. Said my father: “We don’t always get what we want.” Video after the jump…

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The word coming out of Arizona is that Derek Anderson will start over Matt Leinart in the Cardinals’ third preseason game against the Chicago Bears tomorrow night. Wait, I thought Derek Anderson sucked. That stuff him about competing for the starting job when he signed with the team in May…that was serious?

“I don’t think we performed the way we want to perform on offense this preseason and we’re going to look at a number of different players in different spots,” said coach Ken Whisenhunt who, when asked what he was looking for Saturday, said “first downs.”

Leinart will play in the second quarter and into the second half, and Whisenhunt said Anderson is not necessarily the starter going forward, only that he wanted to see how the team and players responded to the move. –The Huddle/USA Today.

Their numbers have been about even in the preseason (maybe Leinart has a little bit of an edge) but this might speak more to the fact that Leinart is just not into playing football as much as being a football player. Just think if Roethlisberger had Leinart’s good looks; the line to the Milledgeville ladies’ room would be even longer.

Derek Anderson already has apologized for calling Cleveland Browns fans “ruthless,” which seems to me like apologizing for calling water wet. First, Anderson’s remarks:

“The fans are ruthless and don’t deserve a winner,” Anderson wrote Tuesday in a terse e-mail when asked for a reaction to being released. “I will never forget getting cheered when I was injured.

“I know at times I wasn’t great. I hope and pray I’m playing when my team comes to town and (we) roll them.”

–via.

And the apology:

“I said some things to [News-Herald reporter] Jeff Schudel earlier that I regret,” Anderson said. “Those of you who got to know me personally from covering the Browns over the past five years, know this was out of character for me. I wasn’t taken out of context, but I was speaking out of frustration after my career with the Browns came to a close.[..]

“I’m looking forward to starting a new chapter in my life.” –ESPN.

Whatever. Dude’s allowed to be upset about losing his job. What Anderson said wasn’t nearly as ridiculous as this comment from a Carolina Panthers blog who wondered about the team’s chances of acquiring the one-time Pro Bowler:

Honestly I didn’t see anything negative outside of the 40% completion percentage and INT’s.

Now that you mention it, neither do I.

Cleveland Browns quarterback Brady Quinn has put his Cleveland-area home on the market, according to an “industry source” reported by ESPN. Quinn started the first three games of 2009 before being benched by Browns coach Eric Mangini in favor of Derek Anderson, he of the Pro Bowl season two years ago, and not much since. was benched in favor of Derek Anderson, whose 2-for-17 performance last Sunday against Buffalo did nothing to change his coach’s mind. Now Quinn wants out.

According to the industry source, with the struggling economy it could take up to six months or a year to sell upper-end homes in the Cleveland area. The asking price is $775,000 for the five-bedroom, five-bathroom house, which is 4,561 square feet.

Quinn bought the Avon Lake property in June of 2007, just two months after he was drafted in the first round by Cleveland, the source confirmed. via.

Between watching former teammate Braylon Edwards thrive in greener pastures on national television earlier this week and realizing that he can’t hit the escalator clauses in his contract from the bench, Quinn is ready to get out of Ohio. But who would take him, considering that we’re now a month into the season? I understand there’s plenty of brown-eye happening in San Francisco. That really sounds more like Brady’s scene. also. also.

Life hasn’t been going too great for Brady Quinn. After being named the starting quarterback for the Cleveland Browns prior to the first game of the season by head coach Eric “Respect My Authori-tah!” Mangini, Quinn was unceremoniously benched at halftime during last week’s 34-3 loss to the Baltimore Ravens and was replaced by Derek “Horse Balls” Anderson. Brady was 6-8 for 34 yards with an interception when he was pulled. Oh yeah, then Anderson came in and crapped the bed even worse, going 11-19 for 92 yards with three interceptions.

To add insult to injury, Mangenious elected to go with Anderson as a starter today against the Bengals (at the time of writing, Cleveland was losing 14-7 at halftime and Anderson is 6-16 for 130 yards with a touchdown).

But even after the benching, Quinn’s week got so much worse. Rapper Common was in Cleveland Thursday night to perform a concert. First of all, who in the heck is Common? I’m not too hip on the hip hop. Is he a good rapper, like that Fresh Prince guy?

Anyway, here’s what happened:

During a performance at Cleveland’s House of Blues Thursday night, Common dissed Quinn during a freestyle. He rapped that he “won’t mess up like Brady Quinn,” and then mentioned Derek Anderson in the next verse. After the audience reacted to the diss, it was noticed that Quinn was actually in the house along with several teammates. Ouch. via. via.

Yowsers. That was probably the most embarrassed Quinn has felt since he had to tell his parents he wasn’t gay.

Now his folks don’t know what to think. And here his dad had his “I love my dead gay son!” speech all ready. You know, if something unfortunate were ever to happen to his confused boy. I do not mean to imply that somebody wants Quinn dead, but how else was I going to be able to incorporate that Heathers reference? Blogging ain’t easy, kids. Sometimes you have to fly by the seat of your leather chaps.