CLEVELAND - Preseason game No. 4 was never intended to showcase how the Browns will look in regular-season game No. 1.

Still, folks who paid upward of $70 for lower-bowl seats surely wanted to look at more than:

n Charlie Frye going 1-for-4 for 8 yards.

n Reuben Droughns rushing twice for minus-1 yard.

n Kellen Winslow Jr., Braylon Edwards and Joe Jurevicius combining for one dinky catch.

That’s all there was for those guys in a 20-7 loss that left the Browns with a 2-2 practice-game record. Nobody ever said charging full price for this brand of practice game isn’t a sham.

The more extensive show, such as it was, gave optimists glimpses of players who might — or might not — help the Browns dig out of the expansion-era muck.

Quarterback Derek Anderson played in the first, second and third quarters in his most serious opportunity to become Frye’s top backup.

Five of his seven series ended in punts, another in an interception.

Late in the first half, Anderson led a seven-play, 53-yard touchdown drive. Frisman Jackson might have played his way into a role as an extra receiver. The fifth-year pro caught three passes for 31 yards from Anderson, including a 5-yard touchdown with 0:04 left in the first half.

Head Coach Romeo Crennel suggested his team came out flat.

“We acted like we wanted to play during (Anderson’s) two-minute drill,” Crennel said. “But we can’t wait that long.

“The Bears are a good team, and you saw what happened.”

Frye said he wanted to make something happen, but his first pass, a simple short dump to Dennis Northcutt, was underthrown and incomplete.

The Browns punted after a short third-and-long completion, setting the tone for a painful first quarter.

The highlight of the defense was continued flashy play by rookie first-round pick Kamerion Wimbley. Wimbley seems to have lightning in his feet moving laterally, diagonally or forward on pass rushes.

Wimbley didn’t manage to get a sack, as he had in the two previous games, but he was disruptive.

Backup defensive linemen Simon Fraser and Nick Eason helped sew up roster spots with first-half sacks.

Change-of-pace back Jerome Harrison keeps showing up. Through three quarters, he rushed seven times for 35 yards and again showed good moves and burst.

The purpose of the game for first-stringers was to get enough work to stay in rhythm and try to do a few good things.

Mostly bad things happened early on for the No. 1 offense, the punt coverage team and the No. 1 defense.

Frye opened with a three-and-out that included a Droughns loss and a poor short pass.

Punter Dave Zastudil didn’t get much on a 37-yarder, helping Chicago’s Devin Hester make a 54-yard return to the Cleveland 20. The Bears scored on a 6-yard Rex Grossman-to-Desmond Clark pass.

Adding insult to the defense was the fact Chicago’s first unit hadn’t scored a touchdown in three previous games.

Frye’s next series brought a short incompletion thrown toward Jurevicius, a Droughns run that went nowhere and a short incompletion toward Winslow.

It would be foolish to condemn Frye’s work in that he was finished for the night with less than five minutes gone in the game. It also is impossible to praise it.

The Browns go into the Sept. 10 opener against the Saints with a cloud of mystery over their young No. 1 quarterback.

It’s not as if anyone is pushing him. Anderson was mostly ineffective before being relieved by Ken Dorsey in the fourth quarter.

Ross Tucker made his third start at center and is all but assured of snapping to Frye in the opener, although recently acquired Lennie Friedman played in the second half.

The Bears put the game away behind No. 3 quarterback Kyle Orton, who pushed the lead to 20-7 with a fourth-quarter touchdown drive.

The Browns said 69,366 tickets were distributed. Based on a look around, quite a lot of those tickets never made it to Cleveland Browns Stadium. Chicago’s clinching touchdown was witnessed by perhaps 7,200 fans.

It was hard to tell what the Browns will look like when 72,000-plus show up for the Sept. 10 opener.

“We have a lot of work to do,” Crennel said.

Reach Repository sports writer Steve Doerschuk at (330) 580-8347 or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .