For quarterback Brandon Weeden, it’s put up or shut up time. The Cleveland Browns will either invest in him long term after this season, or move on.
Unfortunately for Brandon Weeden, he has Norv Turner as his offensive coordinator; but at least Weeden doesn’t have Turner as his head coach. So he has that going for him, which is nice. The 2014 NFL Draft class is LOADED at quarterback- Teddy Bridgewater, AJ McCarron, Aaron Murray, David Fales, Johnny Manziel (if you’re the riverboat gambler of all insane riverboat gaming NFL GMs), so if the Brownies tank and Weeden is terrible, the options for starting over again are right there.
ESPN Monday Night Football analysts Jon Gruden discussed this on conference call yesterday:
“Brandon Weeden is a guy that we had here for the quarterback camp. Look, he has a huge arm. He’s got a tremendous live arm, and I thought he made more tight?window throws than almost any of the other college quarterbacks that came out that year. I think he’s on a football team that doesn’t have tremendous skill around him. I don’t think that his wide receiving corps is a polished group yet. But I do think he is developing. I like what he did against St. Louis, really like some of the things he did against Detroit. None of them played very well against Indianapolis. Brandon Weeden and the rest of the offense didn’t play very good. That was a setback and somewhat of a disappointment.”
Chucky continued when asked a follow up about Brandon Weeden:
“I don’t know what direction Cleveland would go. It’s easy to say it’s make or break, but who are you going with next year? I mean, they’ve changed quarterbacks more than any team in NFL history in the last 20 years since they’ve been back in Cleveland. What’s the alternative?
I think they have to try to build around Brandon Weeden, maybe improving the receiving corps, let him work himself through this new offense. I’m confident he’s going to be a good pro quarterback. But if it doesn’t work out, coaches and quarterbacks don’t last long, I know that.”
Paul M. Banks is the owner of The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. An analyst for 95.7 The Fan, he also writes on Chicago sports media for Chicago Now. President Obama follows him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)