TONY GROSSI
PLAIN DEALER REPORTER

NFL exhibition games are supposed to be unheralded rookies running down on special teams and veterans unlimbering their joints for a quarter or two.

A couple touchdowns to satisfy the home crowd and an injury-free night to satisfy the coach, and everybody goes home happy.

This one's different.

You can make the case that tonight's game against the Green Bay Packers marks the most significant Browns' exhibition since they were reborn.

After all, only the starting quarterback position is at stake.

Based on the schedule written by coach Butch Davis in June, challenger Kelly Holcomb plays with the No. 1 offense against Green Bay's No. 1 defense tonight.

Incumbent Tim Couch, who started the scrimmage with Buffalo and the first exhibition in Tennessee, will go second. If he follows last week's script, Davis will keep some starters in with Couch, no matter what substitutions Green Bay makes on defense.

Neither quarterback will play in the second half, the coach indicated.

Asked if this is the make-or-break game in the competition, Davis was typically vague, unclear and contradictory.

"Not necessarily," he said. "I thin, you know, we'll find out. It's the last opportunity to go out and perform and play well."

Davis then said he will announce the winner of the competition Sunday or Monday.

Everyone whose future rides on this decision insists Davis has not made up his mind yet. Those include Davis, Carmen Policy, Couch and Holcomb, the receivers, the linemen. Everybody.

Most everyone else insists the decision has been made, that Davis has known his starter all along and nothing that has happened in training camp has altered his mind.

"I don't know what Coach Davis is thinking. He's the only one that knows," said Holcomb.

"It's going to be a tough decision," said Couch.

Teammates have been painfully noncommittal about analyzing the competition.

"Honestly, I don't care who the man is," cornerback Daylon McCutcheon pleaded this week. "I just want to win football games."

In his last interview opportunity of the week, Davis laid down what will ultimately decide the competition.

"Probably the deciding factor is who's going to give us the best chance to win right now," he said. "I have very little regard for what's the future, for 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008. They may have a different coach in those years, so I'm not really concerned about worrying about that right now.

"It's just [based on] gut feeling, and performance, how's the team going to play against Indianapolis [in the Sept. 7 opener]. We want to get off to a good start."