The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Which Weeden is the real one?
Browns rookie quarterback Brandon Weeden could not have had two more different games to open up his NFL career.
After looking beyond dreadful in Week 1, where he threw four interceptions and completed just over 33 percent of his passes, Weeden looked like a completely different player in Sunday’s 34-27 win over the Bengals.
Weeden threw for 322 yards and two touchdowns, not only having one of the best passing performances in the short history of the expansion Browns — which is really a sad statement — but also becoming the first Browns rookie quarterback to throw for over 300 yards since Eric Zeier.
The unfortunate part for Weeden is that his passing defense was extremely porous with no Joe Haden in the lineup
Now we all know that rookies can be inconsistent throughout their rookie season, especially when they near the dreaded “rookie wall” in a couple of months, but Weeden’s first two starts are not a mark of inconsistency. It’s downright bipolar.
The fact that he turned around from having one of the worst starts in recent memory to the great one he had on Sunday is absolutely stunning.
Granted, he had the help of a healthy Trent Richardson who showed that the Browns might finally have a great offensive player teams have to worry about, but to make that kind of a turnaround is beyond bizarre as he nearly tripled his yardage from Week 1 while not throwing a pick once.
It was certainly promising to see Weeden look the way he did against Cincinnati, giving a sign that maybe, just maybe, he could be the quarterback the franchise has longed for since Bernie.
Before we can figure that out, though, we need to discover which Brandon Weeden is the real Weeden?
Is he the one who looked inept against Philadelphia, throwing four picks and missing wide open receivers by 15 yards? Or is he the guy who was in command against Cincinnati and looked better in one game than Colt McCoy was in two seasons as the starter?
The one we all want it to be couldn’t be more obvious, especially after watching the Browns look utterly inept offensively last season.
Fans are sick of losing football. At this point, they’re sick of talking about how much they’re sick of losing football.
Two winning seasons since return of the Browns in 1999 and only one playoff win since 1989 pretty much says everything.
A franchise-level quarterback changes everything in this league when it comes to making bad teams into powerhouses. Just ask Matt Stafford and the Detroit Lions.
In the case of Weeden, just like how one game can’t be a sample size, neither can a second.
The real test of his talent will come in the weeks to come when teams start to gameplan against what he does well, which looks to be how he throws the intermediate pass and the velocity of his throws.
He’s proven early on that he has the ability to make all the throws because of his impressive arm.
But he’s also proven that he can be like Brett Favre when it comes to taking too many chances with the football.
We saw that against the Eagles when Weeden was picked twice by Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie not only on the exact same play, but pretty much at the exact same place on the field.
Maybe he deserves a bit of a mulligan not only because it was his first start, but also because of who was on that Philadelphia defense: Trent Cole, Jason Babin, DRC, Nnamdi Asomugha, Cullen Jenkins and most recently, DeMeco Ryans. With those names, it’s hard to imagine many teams having success against them.
Not too many rookie quarterbacks are going to have success in any form with the exception of Matt Ryan.
Add in the youngest and smallest team in the AFC and it’s pretty easy to see how Weeden’s rookie year is going to be a wilder roller coaster than any other down the road at Cedar Point.
He’s going to have more bad games like he did against Philadelphia. The schedule is simply too good and young teams are bound to have letdowns.
The important question is how many games like last Sunday’s will he have? If he has another big game and leads the Browns over Buffalo, they might be on to something.
If he makes it three-in-a-row and upsets the Ravens...well, let’s just focus on this Sunday.
Turnover on downs
The NFL on Tuesday lost one of its many pioneers when Steve Sabol passed away at the age of 69.
Sabol was the creator of NFL Films, which is responsible for not only archiving almost every NFL game of the last several decades, but also making every game look like a feature film. No other sport has anything like that or anything close to it.
The beauty of NFL Films was how close they got to all the action and hearing idle conversations and chatter of players, coaches, announcers and fans which put you right in the middle of the action.
It is a large reason why the NFL is an American staple and firmly planted itself as the most popular game in the country, second in the world behind soccer.
It’s also a lesson that even the biggest innovation can be just a simple idea. Now if we can just keep the NFL from playing games in London... tbielik@MorningJournal.com
Twitter: @bielik_tim