The only sure things in NFL life are death, taxes and high quarterback anxiety.

The Browns think they stole one by snatching Brady Quinn deep in the first round. The Bills dream they drafted one at No. 92 overall in Stanford's Trent Edwards.

What can either team know?

In 2004, Buffalo picked J.P. Losman at No. 22, the same spot where Cleveland collared Brady Quinn last month. With the 90th pick in 2004, Atlanta picked Matt Schaub.

Losman hasn't necessarily bombed, but his record as a starter (8-16) is no beauty. Schaub has emerged as the more promising passer; at least, the Texans thought as much when they acquired him and kicked former No. 1 pick David Carr into the tumbleweeds.

Quarterback is to football what egg is to omelet. If you don't have one, you're scrambling. If you don't get one, you're fired.

Sometimes that means cooking a kid QB in a microwave. Tim Couch, Eli Manning and Alex Smith will never know if they'd have come out of a slow roaster better.

Sometimes it means youth movements are out and old-timers fly in. Rich Gannon, Vinny Testaverde and Jeff Garcia, c'mon down.

Almost always, it means identifying Mr. Wrong right away.

Teams are forever dressing up somebody new as a starting quarterback. By Halloween, half the NFL teams may have installed a new No. 1 passer since Labor Day 2006.

Late this summer, there will be or might be new starters in:

• Oakland. JaMarcus Russell is a No. 1 pick, and it's not as if he needs to beat out John Elway.

• Cleveland. Browns icon Bernie Kosar says incumbent Charlie Frye played well under the circumstances and might thrive in '07, but hot air on Frye's neck is blowing in from South Bend.

¥ Denver. Rookie Round 1 pick Jay Cutler was just 2-3 in a late 2006 audition, but the Broncos scored at least 20 points in each of his five starts.

¥ Kansas City. Aging Trent Green is out. Brodie Croyle, a Round 3 pick out of Alabama in '06, could be in.

¥ Minnesota. An Alabama State QB, Tavaris Jackson, was picked slightly higher than the Alabama one, Croyle, in ' 06. Jackson started and lost the Vikings' last two games.

¥ Washington. Jason Campbell, a No. 25 pick in 2005, had a 2-5 record in a 2006 trial.

¥ Tampa Bay. Jeff Garcia despises losing almost as much as he despises being a No. 2 QB. He'll try to beat out Chris Simms.

¥ Houston. Schaub made just two starts in three years behind Michael Vick, but scouts swear they see something.

That's eight teams that missed the postseason, all anxious about what a new QB might do. Seven teams know what a new QB can do, based on using one last year.

Veteran Jon Kitna passed for 4,208 yards but did nothing for Detroit, a 3-13 outfit.

Miami used a new QB, Daunte Culpepper, and a new replacement, Joey Harrington, in a season that got old fast.

Five other teams, though, emerged somewhere between pleased and delirious with their new 2006 QBs.

Baltimore quantum leaped from 6-10 in 2005 to 13-3 behind Steve McNair.

New Orleans traded for Drew Brees and went 10-6, on the sorry heels of 3-13.

Dallas dumped Drew Bledsoe after six games, then won five of its next six behind bolt-out-of-the-blue Tony Romo.

Tennessee went 8-5 in rookie Vince Young's 13 starts. The No. 3 pick won six of his last seven, with the Titans never scoring less than 20 points.

Arizona hit a groove with rookie No. 10 pick Matt Leinart scoring lots of points while winning four of his last six starts.

The Young and Leinart examples entice the Oakland Raiders and Browns with the upside of playing JaMarcus Russell and Brady Quinn early in their rookie years.

But this high-anxiety sphere orbits through a familiar dark side.

Glaringly high draft picks Rick Mirer, Heath Shuler, Ryan Leaf and Akili Smith were rookie starters not so long ago. Where are they now?

In a ditch along the booby-trapped road linking Tim Couch to David Carr, never to reach the dreamy horizon where Peyton Manning and Tom Brady motor off in the distance.

SHORT PEOPLE

Ohio State's Troy Smith felt like the Big Ten's odd man out draft weekend. Troy Smith's short stature - he's 6 foot even - was the main factor dropping him to Round 5. Troy Smith couldn't have been more frustrated than Drew Tate, though. Despite starting for three years for Iowa in a career that included a 331-yard game in a rout of Ohio State, Tate wasn't drafted. The reason: He stands 5-foot-11 1/8. If he makes the roster of the Rams, who signed him as a free agent, he stands to be the shortest quarterback on an NFL roster. The shortest in 2006 was Seattle's Seneca Wallace, who was the only QB in the league shorter than 6 feet.

See more at www.cantonrep.com