Still trying to figure out who is better…
Back when the Browns took Brandon Weeden in this years NFL draft, I was pretty upset. For a couple reasons, one being, I like McCoy. I really thought he was coming along and starting to improve last year. Also Weeden is almost 30, and coming in as a rookie. Not the best combination. But now at this juncture in the NFL season, Weeden has played 13 games, the same number that McCoy played last year. So timing wise this is set up perfectly. Lets look at their stats, shall we:
2012 – Weeden: 57% Comp. (463 Att.), 3,037 Yards, 13 TDs, 15 INTs, 26.1 QBR, and 72.8 Passer Rating.
2011 – McCoy: 57.2% Comp. (463 Att.), 2,733 Yards, 14 TDs, 11 INTs, 40.1 QBR and 74.6 Passer Rating.
Statistically that is pretty close. Big differences in Yardage in favor of Weeden, the QBR in favor of McCoy and 4 less interceptions. I still think that McCoy could have done better than Weeden this year, but Weeden is not doing as bad as I thought he would. He certainly has had his rookie struggles, and the stat that keeps being mentioned is that he has two of the five worst QBRs of any quarterback on the winning team in a game. Which is a pretty phenomenal stat considering hes only won 5 games. Well, it would be phenomenal if that stat was a good thing. Weeden is not really the reason the Browns have won 3 in a row. In fact it sometimes seems like the team wins in spite of him and the suspect offensive playcalling combo of Shurmur and Childress. But that is a story for another time and another post (probably one about how AMAZING Trent Richardson is too).
Purely from the stats, Weeden is playing almost as well as McCoy did last year, and if Weeden can manage to avoid turnovers he could actually even out over the next few weeks and turn out to have a pretty solid season. While the offense as a whole seems to be better in terms of skill this year than last all around, it has been the defense that really deserves credit for getting the Browns all the way to 5-8 (again more on this in a later post).
The question remains would McCoy have been able to do better this season than Weeden has, and the answer is of course that I don’t know and we couldn’t possibly know. But with a 3 game win streak it doesn’t seem like we’re going to see any of McCoy dropping back this season.
And on a brief sidenote, I know that all anyone cares about is me vs Zach in picks, and i would love to announce that I am decimating him in picks, beating him in both traditional (where I am picking at a beautiful 93%) and also absolutely crushing him in our lines pick’em league.
The Lake Erie Soldiers 