Not bad, Colt McCoy. Not bad at all.
The Browns couldn’t have asked for much more out of rookie Colt McCoy, who made his NFL debut in Pittsburgh on Sunday.
The rookie made his first professional start against one of the nastiest defenses in the NFL and in hostile environment, no less. But he completed 23-of-33 passes for 281 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions, one of which was Ben Watson’s fault. (The tight end should have made the catch.)
The most impressive thing about McCoy was how he wasn’t afraid to attack the Steelers’ secondary, which is definitely Pittsburgh’s biggest weakness. He was poised in the pocket, displayed a ton of confidence and didn’t appear to be overwhelmed. Cleveland still lost 28-10 but considering the Browns couldn’t run the ball, couldn’t stop the run and couldn’t pressure Ben Roethlisberger defensively, they should be proud of the way their rookie signal caller hung in there for four quarters.
When healthy, Seneca Wallace should start in Cleveland. He gives the Browns their best chance of winning and if he’s 100% next week after suffering a high ankle sprain last Sunday, he should play going forward.
But if he’s not healthy or if the Browns already consider this a lost year (and nobody would blame them if they do), then there’s no reason McCoy shouldn’t receive more playing time – especially over Jake Delhomme, who has shown nothing in two years.
Delhomme is done and he’s not a part of Cleveland’s future. The same can’t be said about McCoy. I’m certainly not suggesting that the Browns start the McCoy era after one performance, but there’s no excuse for Delhomme to be listed ahead of him on the depth chart moving forward.
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Posted in: NFL
Tags: Cleveland Browns, Colt McCoy, Colt McCoy debut, Jake Delhomme, Seneca Wallace
I’m not sure I’m all for throwing McCoy into the grinder just yet . . . After all, haven’t thr Browns just gone through 47 QBs in the last 5 years? (don’t look that up, it’s accurate).
By and large I beleive most of them probably weren’t so bad, they just were terrorized into make a lot of bad decisions.
The difference now in Cleveland over past seasons is that the line is pretty decent and they have a running game. A QB should do fine if he can play (unlike Derek Anderson or Brady Quinn).
I was impressed with McCoy. His arm is stronger than I thought, and he wasn’t afraid to throw downfield. Also, he’s very accurate. Again, he got lots of dinks and dunks in Texas, but yesterday he made tough throws and most of them were accurate.
He certainly has the makeup of a QB. He did get happy feet at times against the brutal Steelers pass rush, but overall he handled himself well.
Wallace will likely be out a minimum of 3-4 weeks, so I think McCoy will get a chance to play for a little while. If he keeps this up and starts to improve, he may hold on to the job all season, and then the Browns can make an informed decision if they have a high draft pick and are staring at a bunch of franchise QBs in the draft.
Let’s see if McCoy can nail down the job.