During his keynote address to the Akron Browns Backers Banquet on Monday, Cleveland Browns general manager Tom Heckert clarified the team's three-way competition for the starting quarterback job by saying that the best guy is going to play. That guy is expected to be 2012 first round pick Brandon Weeden.
"The best guy is going to play, and we fully expect Brandon to be that guy," Heckert said according to the The Plain Dealer. "That's our goal, is to have him be the guy."
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"You can write about it and talk about it however you want. But I think when we say 'open competition,' the best guy is going to play. That's the way it is, but we drafted Brandon Weeden to be that guy. You draft a guy 22nd in the draft, you think he's gonna be that guy."
The Browns had been saying that Weeden would have to earn the starting job in an open competition with Colt McCoy and Seneca Wallace, but those proclamations always seemed a bit hollow. When your team is coming off a 4-12 season, and has several holes on the roster, you don't spend a first round pick on a 28-year-old prospect with the intention of having him sit him for a season behind a third-year player you've already identified as not the long-term option at the position (McCoy) or a career No. 2 quarterback (Wallace).
So, it's basically Weeden's job to lose. With six of his 16 games coming against the Baltimore Ravens, Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals, there's no time like the present to get used to being under pressure.
