Former First Down editor Keith Webster writes weekly for nfluk.com, giving his thoughts on all matter of topics surrounding the NFL. In Keith's latest column he examines the mistake Derek Anderson made by leaving Cleveland with a bitter rant at Browns fans.

It is one of my favourite NFL memories from the 1980s. The Cleveland Browns and Denver Broncos had a fierce rivalry at the time. They were two of the better teams in the AFC and battled each other in the AFC Championship Game three time in four years with Denver going to the Super Bowl each time.

They were similar in as much as neither had a history as the most fashionable team and that both possessed an X-factor late in any season with their uncovered stadia offering little protection from the brutal winter weather both cities have to endure. They make football fans of a hardy nature in Cleveland and Denver.

But through all the great head to heads, through Elway's drive and Byner's fumble, the one thing that sticks with me is Denver going into Cleveland and having to start a drive deep in their own end of the field with their back to the Dawg Pound, that lunatic end of the old Cleveland Municipal Stadium which was filled with more pooches than 101 Dalmations, and not many of them quiet or sober.

As John Elway broke the huddle and settled his team at the line, the TV camera panned the end zone to show the place was littered with dog biscuits, Bonios everywhere you looked, Elway knee-deep in the crunchy snacks dogs love to chomp down on. Somewhere in there you could just about make out a football game but it was not easy to spot in the madness.

Years later, in December 2001, the Browns had gone through a lot. The club had vanished when owner Art Modell moved his team to Baltimore for the 1995 season. Then, after years of soul-searching and bitter recriminations, the Browns were reborn in 1999. But late in that 2001 season, in a game against Jacksonville, outraged fans took out their frustration with officials by showering the field not in dog biscuits but beer bottles. Players ran from the field as hundreds of bottles rained down from the upper deck in an incident which brought shame on the club and its fans.

They say New York can be a tough crowd. Try Cleveland.

Or, perhaps, don't try Cleveland ever again if your name is Derek Anderson. In a statement which made Matt Hasselbeck's "We want the ball and we're going to score" gaffe in Green Bay seem tame by comparison, Anderson left Cleveland this week with a parting shot which one day may come full circle and hit him right in the back of the head.

The Cleveland quarterback was released by the team on Tuesday and he wasted no time letting those crazies in the stands know what he really thinks of them.

"The fans are ruthless and don't deserve a winner," he said. "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."

As insults go, it wasn't subtle or well crafted. More like the lashing out of a man who had been bottling up a lot of frustration and anger, and who finally snapped.

Anderson has been in a no-win situation for quite some time in Cleveland, partly because of expectation, partly because he appeared ready to satisfy that expectation and party because of the Brady Quinn situation.

Quinn was drafted in the first round in 2007, the same day Cleveland passed on him with the third pick, only to find him still available at No.22, causing them to use their second pick of the first round on him and to walk away thinking all their Christmases had come at once.

That was because they selected Joe Thomas with the third overall pick, giving them the left tackle they so desperately craved. To get the quarterback they wanted as well was just too much to have hoped for.

Thomas has been exactly what the club and its rabid fans expected. He has been in the league for three seasons and has been named to the Pro Bowl each time. Quinn, on the other hand, took a while to get off the ground, as is the way with most QBs fresh out of college. The learning curve these days at that position in the NFL is remarkably steep, such is the difference in speed and complexity of defenses from college to the pros.

While Quinn was being bedded in, the Browns called in Anderson to keep the seat warm for the next NFL superstar. The problem was that in Quinn's rookie year of 2007, Anderson surprised a lot of people by occasionally playing like he was going to be the future of the club under center. His numbers were just short of excellent but good enough to be highly encouraging as the Browns went 10-6 and missed a division title only by a tie-breaker. Who needed Quinn?!

But the following season, 2008, his numbers went backwards and so did the Browns as they collapsed to 4-12. Anderson lasted 10 games but was hurt physically and mentally in a November 30 clash with the Colts. He suffered a knee injury that forced him out of the game. As he was carried from the field, he claims he heard some of his own fans cheering and interpreted that as the supporters being glad he was too badly injured to carry on.

Some fans have their own version of events that day. They say the cheering was not for the fact that one of their own players was injured but because it meant the day when Quinn would be the regular starter was coming closer. Anderson however was not the only Browns player that day who felt the fans were deliberately sticking it to him.

The player himself had long considered he was not welcome in Cleveland, probably because media and fans were so desperate for Quinn to lead them to better days and that those fans thought Quinn was going to be the long-term option anyway so why not get him in there and forget about trying to go anywhere with Anderson.

Quinn started nine games last season before getting injured late in the year. Anderson started the other seven. Their combined numbers were little better than Cleveland's season as the club continued to toil. After Quinn was injured in December, Anderson came in and started the last two games of the season, both of which Cleveland won.

The Browns may well have better days ahead of them now that Mike Holmgren has been installed as president. Holmgren knows a thing or two about quarterbacks, having worked with and developed some of the best in his days at San Francisco and Green Bay. For whatever reason, though, he did not figure Anderson as part of that future.

Anderson's parting shot to the Browns fans was probably not too clever. He may well feel a little better for it this morning, having gotten off his chest something which clearly has been eating away at him for two years. One day, however, he may find himself knee deep in dog biscuits and wish he had kept his mouth shut.

Browns fans doubtless feel much-aggrieved. After all, supporters pay their money and are entitled to do what they like when it comes to voicing their opinion. I am sure there are plenty of them who would remind any player with a bruised ego that "I work construction five days a week for one per cent of what you earn and yet I spend that on buying a ticket to pay your enormous salary, so I will boo if I want to."

The problem with that argument is that fans cannot argue on one hand that players should treat the game as being about more than money and then on the other hand claim the players should take anything they throw at them just because they earn vast amounts of the stuff.

Money is great and having lots of it, I presume, is even better. But it is not a shield against the abuses suffered in public from fans and media. I have met a lot of players over the years, some of them nice guys and others complete boneheads. But they are all human and they all hurt, even if they don't all show it publicly. Fans should remember sometimes that these people have families and all the money in the world can't help you explain to your wife or children why your own fans cheer when you get injured.

Browns fans can try to downplay that incident all they like but deep down they know it happened to some degree and that it was wrong. You can boo a guy for playing badly or for not putting in as much effort as you would expect but to celebrate him being injured was just plain wrong.

Anderson however, needed to leave town with a little more class. Why rise to the bait? Why set yourself up for another fall somewhere down the line? Of course he wants to come back one day and beat the Browns black and blue. But he could have done that by quietly slipping into town with another team and letting his arm do the talking, leaving Browns fans feeling very sheepish.

Instead, if he does come back one day as the opposition, he will be the story for a whole week before the game and handling that kind of pressure could affect his performance on a day when he will want to be at his very best.

----------------

While Derek Anderson and the Browns fans were spectacularly falling out in the north of Ohio, down in the south of the state, media were licking their lips at the prospect of having not just one flashy loudmouth lining up at receiver but of having bragadocious bookends.

Chad Ochocinco, the self-publicity machine formerly known as Chad Johnson, has held court in Cincinnati for nine years and has been a walking sound bite since day one.

Now the man who is the master in that class appears keen to join Chad in the Queen City. Terrell Owens has talked his way in and out of San Francisco, Dallas, Philadelphia and Buffalo over the past 14 years and if he lands with the Bengals, can you imagine the battle for attention, the media frenzy, the post-match quote sessions.

Can you imagine the state rivalry game in Cleveland when those two turn up and go head to head with the Browns fans.

Some media in Cincinnati may dread the prospect but one thing is for sure. With those two in the same locker room, no beat reporter is ever going to be able to call his desk and say he is short of something to write about.