It’s Brady Quinn time in Cleveland . Or at least it should be.

The Browns are imploding, having turned in the single worst Week 1 performance of any NFL team. On Tuesday, they traded quarterback Charlie Frye to the Seattle Seahawks, accepting the measly compensation of a sixthround draft pick in exchange for the player who just 48 hours earlier started the Browns’ 34-7 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. That made Frye the first quarterback since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger to start his team’s opener and then get traded before the second game.

The departure of Frye should make Quinn, the rookie from Notre Dame, the Browns’ starter. But Browns coach Romeo Crennel has declared that Derek Anderson — who replaced Frye in the second quarter Sunday — will start this weekend against the Cincinnati Bengals. Displaying no confidence that his offensive line could protect his quarterback, Crennel responded to the question of whether he should have played Quinn against the Steelers by asking, “What was I going to do, put him in there and throw him to the dogs?”

If Crennel wants to save his job, he has no other choice. Crennel is on the hot seat in Cleveland, and the Browns showed on Sunday that they’re no better this year than they were last year, when they finished 4–12. Most Browns fans consider the Steelers their biggest rivals, and Crennel is now 0–5 against Pittsburgh, with the losses coming by a cumulative score of 163–55. Without much chance of improving on his 10–23 record, developing Quinn as the team’s quarterback of the future is the only substantive accomplishment Crennel can achieve this year.

It’s understandable that Crennel worries that Quinn isn’t ready. When the Browns chose Quinn with the 22nd pick in April’s NFL draft, they expected him to be their quarterback of the future, but Quinn missed valuable practice time when he was held out of training camp in a contract dispute. The Browns’ front office still remembers the way the team put its last first-round quarterback, Tim Couch, on the field before he was ready, and how Couch lost his confidence and failed to develop into a competent NFL player.

But the truth is, Couch never would have become an NFL star under any circumstances. Couch became the top pick in the draft through putting up video game stats in a gimmicky college offense. Quinn, on the other hand, ran Charlie Weis’s pro-style offense at Notre Dame. Quinn has shortcomings as a quarterback — his arm strength is mediocre and he sometimes struggles to withstand the opposing pass rush — but the best way for him to develop is to play, not to hold a clipboard on the sidelines on Sundays while watching Anderson.

For all they’ve invested in Quinn, the Browns need him to become an elite player. Although it seemed like a bargain at the time to draft Quinn with the 22nd pick, the Browns traded their 2008 firstround pick to the Dallas Cowboys to move into position to draft him. The way the Browns looked on Sunday, that pick might be the first choice in the draft, meaning if Quinn ends up as anything short of one of the league’s top players, the Browns gave up too much to acquire him.

Everyone in Cleveland is talking about Quinn, but quarterback is far from the Browns’ only problem. The offensive line was a mess on Sunday and had no answer for the Steelers’ blitzes. Frye was sacked five of the 15 times he dropped back to pass. There won’t be much of a running game in Cleveland this year, as the Browns’ big move in the off-season was signing running back Jamal Lewis, who has averaged less than 3.5 yards a carry over the last two years. The secondary looked painfully slow against Pittsburgh. The special teams provided nothing but comic relief on Sunday, including a botched snap, a punt of just 17 yards, and four penalties — all on one play.

There is talent on Cleveland’s roster. Kellen Winslow, who led the team with four catches for 83 yards Sunday, has recovered from injuries that forced him to miss all but two games of his first two seasons to become one of the best tight ends in the league. Wide receiver Braylon Edwards has a great blend of size and speed. Kamerion Wimbley is the prototypical 3–4 outside linebacker and had 11 sacks as a rookie last year.

But Cleveland does not have as much talent as it should, not when the team picks at the top of the draft every year, and the fans are growing restless. The sellout crowd of 73,089 in Cleveland spent much of the game booing Frye and Anderson and chanting Quinn’s name, but the biggest insult came in the third quarter, when the fans started heading for the exits. By the middle of the fourth quarter, there were easily 50,000 empty seats in Cleveland Browns Stadium.

The only way those fans would have stayed is if they had had a chance to see Quinn. Coaches shouldn’t make personnel decisions to placate the fans, but in this case, the fans are right. The Browns need Quinn, and they need him now.

Mr. Smith is a writer for FootballOutsiders.com.