Browns' Pettine: No quarterback controversy here

Josh McCown remains the Cleveland Browns' starting quarterback despite his poor performance and reserve Johnny Manziel's good outing on Thursday night.

Cleveland fell 11-10 to the Bills, but the stark difference between their two options under center had head coach Mike Pettine reiterating the order of things at the position.

"I'm not going to sit here and talk about trying to stir up a quarterback controversy," Pettine said, via the Cleveland Plain Dealer. "Josh is firmly the one."

A 35-year-old veteran, McCown firmly completed two passes to the other team on 10 attempts Thursday and Manziel led the Browns on a 96 yard touchdown drive, going 6-for-7 before finding Shane Wynn for the 21 yard score to take what was then a 10-3 advantage.

The key play on the drive was a 37-yard toss for Darius Jennings after the pocket collapsed behind him and rolled left for the receiver trailing across the secondary.

"I think a 96-yard drive is better than the 30-yard drive we had," Manziel said afterwards, comparing his scoring drive against the Redskins last week. "So that was better. I felt like things were slowing down still. I was able to make some protection calls and get our guys lined up."

Though, if you ask Mike Pettine, that ease of play, and the sudden apparent closeness between the Browns' two starting options, may have come from the fact than Johnny Football was facing the reservists.

"We'd say it's possible," Pettine said in reference to Manziel closing the gap between he and McCown, "but I think most teams, that's a pretty good drop off from any starting unit, down to the twos. There's a lot of twos with the starters, as well, so there's an even bigger drop-off to what he [Manziel was] playing against. It gets factored in, but we'll see. We'll evaluate both guys."

McCown was himself evaluated by doctors following Thursday's game after leaving with a sore right ring finger, but X-rays were negative. 

Mike Pettine is left with two options: the veteran starter who looked bad against starters, or the second-year kid who looked good against the backups. He's made his decision.