Brown In For Injured Plummer

Jake Plummer has played with numerous injuries this season, but a broken right ring finger will sideline the Arizona Cardinals quarterback for at least a month.

Plummer, who took the Cardinals to the playoffs in his first full year as a starter last season, will be replaced by former New York Giants starter Dave Brown.

"Jake is our franchise quarterback, and he's the guy that's going to lead us to the playoffs and the Super Bowl," coach Vince Tobin said Monday. "Him not being there is certainly a shock to a lot of people. But, as I told our team, we're fortunate to have a guy that's won in this league and this division."

"And Dave Brown is going to be The Man."

Brown was far from spectacular in the second half of a 24-10 loss to the Washington Redskins on Sunday. He was 8-of-21 for 117 yards, a touchdown and an interception.

Before he joined the Cardinals as a free agent prior to last season, Brown started 53 of 57 games for the Giants from 1992-97, including a career-high 2,814 yards in 1995.

Now, he must succeed in order to keep alive Arizona's hopes of another postseason berth.

Brown is 19-of-40 in 1 1/2 years with the Cardinals, and his 10-yard scoring pass to Rob Moore with 6:59 left in the game was his first scoring toss in just over two years. He has two weeks to shake off the rust because Arizona has a bye this week. After that, the Cardinals (2-4), who are 0-2 against AFC teams, play New England.

The big knock against Brown is his lack of mobility.

But Plummer, who sustained a hip pointer in a 14-3 win over the Giants the previous week, wasn't very agile against Washington, either. One of his two interceptions was thrown after he decided not to run for a first down with an open field ahead of him.

"It's going to be tough to replace him, but I just have to go out there and play my game," Brown said. "I'm not going to play the way he can, because no one else can play like him."

That means a lot of waiting in the pocket created by Arizona's shaky offensive line.

Plummer was injured on a freakish accident when blitzing linebacker Shawn Barber took advantage of a botched call on the line and came through a hole almost untouched.

"The hit was nothing, but I got my finger caught in his face mask," Plummer said.

Tobin said he may bring in another quarterback to back up Brown an rookie Chris Greisen.

"Anybody that you bring in at this point is not going to be familiar with your system," Tobin said. "(Competition) obviously depends on how good the guy is and what happens once he gets here, but our intention is that Chris will be our backup and this guy will be our third-string quarterback."

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