Monthly Archives: October 2013

Brandon Weeden’s attempt to throw the ball away with 6:04 left in the 4^th quarter and his team down only 7, at the Lions 44 yard line, on 1^st and 10, has to be one of the worst passes ever attempted in NFL history!  It would be one thing if he stepped up in the pocket and threw an overhand spiral into double or even triple coverage because he thought with his arm strength he could fit it in to a tight window, but what he did yesterday was and is inexcusable. Take the sack and you still have three more downs to try and get the first down, and lead your team down the field and tie the game.

Instead, with a guy draped on his leg, no momentum going forward, Weeden tried to flick the ball out of bounds. He tried to kind of sideways fling it out of bounds. He obviously didn’t get enough on it, and instead of it ending up out of bounds, the  flick, fling or flip (Antawn Jamison even thought it was ugly) popped up in the air so high that Lions linebacker DeAndre Levy could have called for a fair catch as he intercepted it!

Whether it’s staring down a receiver before he throws it, not going through all of his progressions, having trouble reading a defense,  or making a “boneheaded throw” (his description of the pass) like he did yesterday, Weeden’s  biggest fault is his – in game decision making.  He continues to make negative, head scratching plays that you just can’t make if you’re going to be a starting quarterback in the NFL.

Maybe if he were a 22 year old rookie or a 23 year old second year player, you could live with the growing pains. But Weeden turned 30 years old today. There’s less patience for him because of that. The clock ticks must faster for him because his age, just like maybe the game moves to fast for him at the NFL level to be a starter in this league.

He’s played 19 games now in the NFL, 18 as a starter. His record is (5-13) as the starter, including (0-3) this season. He’s thrown more interceptions (22) than touchdown passes (18). His career completion percentage is only 57% and his career quarterback rating is a very pedestrian 72.3 and again, he’s a 30 year old second year player.

Can he be a viable back-up QB in this league? I think he can. He showed that last week in the leading the Browns to a comeback victory over the Bills. But I don’t think he can be an every day starter in this league. Making the same mistakes over and over and not really learning from them tells me that. So what do the Browns do? Brian Hoyer is out for the season; Jason Cambell looked horrible in his one performance coming off the bench. The list of available free agent quarterbacks is not a good one, with Vince Young maybe at the top of that list.

So Joe Banner, Mike Lombardi, Rob Chudzinski and Browns fans everywhere may have to grin and bear it and hope that Weeden can prove me wrong, and get better, as he gets more snaps and plays more games this season. Hopefully he’ll learn from that “boneheaded pass” he made yesterday and we won’t see that again until NFL Films does a Top 10 list of the worst passes ever thrown in NFL history!