BEREA – Browns president Mike Holmgren couldn’t live with the quarterback play the way it was in 2009. And he couldn’t imagine starting another training camp with the uncertainty that surrounded the Brady Quinn-Derek Anderson competition-circus.

So Holmgren had his scouts re-examine the game film. He called general manager Tom Heckert, coach Eric Mangini and a couple of other trusted confidants into a room and brainstormed about how to fix the biggest problem on a team loaded with them.

After two months of internal debate, a series of trade inquiries and a week of headline-making transactions, Holmgren emerged Monday to explain the thinking that sent Brady Quinn to Denver and brought in

35-year-old Jake Delhomme and career backup Seneca Wallace.

“When the quarterbacks play kind of the way they played last year, it’s pretty hard to win games in this league,” Holmgren, joined by Mangini, said in a 55-minute news conference.

Quinn and Anderson were benched during the season, posted below-average ratings and needed a run-dominated four-game winning streak for the team to finish 5-11.

“I wasn’t going to be doing my job if I didn’t attack that situation,” Holmgren said. “I didn’t want to go into training camp with the kind of uncertainty they went into training camp last year. I don’t think it’s a healthy thing for a team. So that’s why I did it.”

Holmgren said he didn’t promise Delhomme, a free agent after being cut by Carolina, the starting job. But the way Holmgren talked, he expects Delhomme to start and Wallace to be the backup.

The depth chart could change depending on offseason workouts and the draft in April. Holmgren didn’t rule out using the No. 7 pick on a quarterback, or packaging a bunch of his 12 draft picks to move up to No. 1 to take Oklahoma’s Sam Bradford.

“We would consider both those things, but we are going to consider a lot of things,” he said. “We have all these picks now. If we were to package 10 of them and move up, we could do all sorts of stuff.

“I like Sam a lot. He’s a fine player.”

That decision’s down the road.

For now, Holmgren thinks he improved the position by cutting Anderson and trading Quinn – a former first-round pick – for a backup running back, sixth-round pick in 2011 and conditional pick in 2012. Holmgren coached Wallace for six years in Seattle and admired Delhomme from afar. He doesn’t agree when they’re referred to as a career backup and an aging veteran.

“The ‘career backup’ is a potential starter,” Holmgren said. “He has been a backup to a Pro Bowl player (Matt Hasselbeck).

“As far as the ‘aging veteran,’ my own belief is this team needs an aging veteran. They need a guy who’s going to grab everybody by the throat and say follow me through that door. That’s what we need. I look at him as the leader that I wanted in the locker room.”

Holmgren was surprised when Carolina released Delhomme, and said that changed the landscape of his search. Delhomme is coming off the worst year of his 12-year career. He threw 18 interceptions compared with eight touchdowns and posted a career-low 59.4 rating. Holmgren said Delhomme’s fine physically following arm surgery in 2007 and a broken finger in 2009. That gives the Browns reason to believe he can bounce back.

“Over time, he’s been a proven winner,” Mangini said. “He’s been a consistent winner. His completion percentage over the years, that’s been consistent as well.

“I don’t think it’s uncommon for a guy to have a bad year, but when you look at his body of work last year, there were a lot of good throws on that tape, too.”

“In Jake’s career, he had a really fine career and a really bad last year,” Holmgren said.

Quinn was viewed as the long-term solution as recently as last year. But he was benched after 10 quarters by Mangini and finished the season with a 53.1 completion percentage and 67.2 rating.

Quinn was 3-9 as a starter in three years with the Browns, and although Holmgren believes a quarterback needs two full seasons to be adequately judged, he was comfortable getting rid of Quinn.

“It was difficult and I’m not sure it’s really fair,” Holmgren said. “You should have a pretty good idea as a coaching staff, kind of where this is headed. Sometimes you have to make decisions.”

Mangini praised Quinn’s work ethic, but didn’t fight for Quinn to stay.

“Sometimes the best thing is for a player to get a fresh start,” he said. “I really hope that he continues to improve. He did everything that we asked him to improve. Sometimes that does happen with the second team that you’re at.”

Holmgren said he hasn’t yet watched much film on the quarterbacks in the draft. He said if you find a guy you love, you shouldn’t pass him up.

“If you believe the young man is the guy, you take him,” he said. “You are not scared off by the fact that it has not worked in years past. You coach him up and you make him the player you want him to be.”

Delhomme is viewed as the stopgap until the next future of the franchise is found. Holmgren doesn’t want him to look at it like that.

“We want him to win games for us as a quarterback, not manage games,” Holmgren said. “That’s his job.”

Contact Scott Petrak at 329-7253 or spetrak@chroniclet.com.

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