This week sees the beginning of a 'season within a season' in the NFL, and it kicks off with a real hum-dinger of a game in Cleveland.

The introduction of the NFL Network in 2003, and their creation of regular Thursday Night Football from Week 10 onwards two years ago, has given a whole new slant to the natural ebb and flow of the regular season, which is typically geared around Sunday games, plus the one Monday nighter each week.

Anderson: Misfiring

The purists here continue to rail against the idea of such a short week for two teams to have to deal with just four days after a typical Sunday outing, but it opens up a fascinating extra dimension to the various divisional races and keeps the games coming thick and fast as the season hots up.

This new element to an already topsy-turvy year in the NFL should also provide great extra viewing for us armchair fans, starting with the Browns entertaining suddenly-struggling Denver (live on SS3 from 1am on Friday), and including the likes of the Jets at New England (Nov 13), Arizona at Philadelphia (Nov 27) and Indianapolis at Jacksonville (Dec 18).

But the TV schedulers have certainly got more than they bargained for with this first game in the Thursday series.

When they originally picked this fixture, it already looked a pretty decent match-up, in pre-season terms, featuring two teams with serious playoff credentials. Now, however, with the results of the last two weeks, it takes on even greater significance for both clubs.

Start with the home team, and it is 'Last Chance Saloon' territory for the Browns, and almost certainly for head coach Romeo Crennel. Another defeat pretty much puts paid to their playoff hopes for this year, and owner Randy Lerner - who is enjoying a Premiership surge with Aston Villa - is unlikely to look kindly on a sixth straight season without post-season play.

That is also the stark back-drop for a major shift of emphasis at the quarterback position, with Crennel - belatedly, according to various pundits over here - opting for the untried former Notre Dame hotshot Brady Quinn in place of misfiring 2007 hero Derek Anderson.

Wobbly

Anderson has been the fall guy - almost literally - for a team currently standing at a wobbly 3-5, and who threw a game-turning interception at the end of last Sunday's 37-27 defeat at Baltimore, when the Browns led 27-13 but then collapsed in spectacular fashion to a Ravens outfit with offensive struggles of their own.

The towering Anderson had been responsible for six interceptions during their miserable 1-3 start to the season, when the lone win came over the even-more-woeful Bengals in one of the most awful displays of offensive football in recent years - 'offensive' being totally the right word.

But, since that shuddering start, Anderson had turned in a respectable 6 touchdowns and just one interception (that howler at Baltimore) while seeing his supposed 'receivers' drop more balls than a one-armed juggler. Now, however, Crennel deems his 6ft 6in hero of 2007 the main problem - and hands the reins to the untested Brady Quinn, who was less than impressive in pre-season.

Quinn hasn't started a game since January 2007, when his Notre Dame over-achievers got their behinds handed to them in the Sugar Bowl by JaMarcus Russell and Lousiana State University (and we all now know how badly Russell himself has fared in the 'big league' since then).

The current record of quarterbacks taken in the 2007 draft is less than impressive, with only Buffalo's Trent Edwards showing any signs of long-term potential, and the microscope on Quinn - who has suddenly become the fan favourite in the Dawg Pound - is going to be intense.

Whether he has the ability and mental constitution to handle the team's make-or-break expectations will be the big pre-game story, and it may also be the post-game chatter, too, as it's hard to see Quinn being able to turn his receivers - notably top drop merchant Braylon Edwards - into a sure-handed bunch in the space of four days.

Spotlight

But then the spotlight will also be on the opposite sideline as well, where Mike Shanahan has overseen a mini-collapse of four defeats in five games to leave their own playoff hopes looking rockier than the mountains which surround their Invesco Field home.

Those feeble four losses include an eye-opening 33-19 shellacking at offensively-challenged Kansas City, a 41-7 whopping against a New England team led by Matt Cassel and last weekend's stunning 26-17 reversal at home to Miami. In a division so wide open even the dismal 1-7 Chiefs and inept 2-6 Raiders still have a shot, the Broncos simply have to show major signs of life in Cleveland if they are to be taken seriously.

They also have quarterback worries of their own in the shape of Jay Cutler, who is looking increasingly erratic with every passing week. Witness these basic stats:

First five games - 10 touchdowns and four interceptions.

Last three games - five touchdowns and six interceptions (including progressively 1, 2 and 3 INTs in that spell).

You suspect Shanahan will have a VERY close eye on Cutler's suddenly-frail psyche, and the first time he lets fly with the kind of wounded duck pass which seemed to be his whole modus operandi against Miami, former Washington signal caller Patrick Ramsey will be warming up in earnest.

It adds a fascinating series of sub-plots to the start of our Thursday season - and Anderson could easily find himself with another member of the Failed QB Club to keep him company by the end of the night.

Then, looking ahead to the Sunday games, there is one fixture which really jumps out of the schedule, and I make no apologies for continuing to highlight the intense battleground of the NFC East.

The Giants' trip to arch-rivals Philadelphia (live on SS2 at 1.30am on Monday) has all the makings of a major heavyweight scrap, and the victor of this little dust-up can look ahead to some post-season activity with serious intent - provided they still have 11 players with all their limbs intact.

The Red Cross may well be on stand-by for this game, and the match-up of two of the league's premier defences will have the purists salivating in anticipation!

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