"Come out and compete," they said. "It's a competition," they said.

Colt McCoy looking a little defeated. I'm sure "defeated"
is exactly how he felt on Monday

Even if your name is "Colt McCoy," you saw this coming from a mile away.

The first depth charts came out for the Cleveland Browns today, and as Pat Shurmur so eloquently put it, "Brandon Weeden will start the Detroit game, and he'll be our starter going forward here."

Like I said, even if you're McCoy himself, you knew this was coming. Anybody who has attended more than one training camp practice has surely noticed that McCoy doesn't take any snaps with the first team. And that was something the young quarterback seemed to think was important enough to specifically point out to the media as he spoke after practice this afternoon.

"I would like to say that I haven't taken any snaps in walk through or in practice with the first group," McCoy said.

That's right, bud, you sure haven't.

McCoy is a gentleman and a professional. Does he provide material that the media is going to salavate over so they (...we?) can write their (...our?) articles? No he does not.

But to me, that's just fine.

You see, today was the first time McCoy has even voiced any type of frustration to the media over what has happened to the quarterback situation in Cleveland. Okay, so that might have something to do with the fact that it was just the third time all camp he's spoken (when he saw the gathering waiting for him, he said, "You guys wanna talk, huh?"). But even so, McCoy didn't explicitly say he was ticked off because it was obvious he never had a chance.

"Well I thought coming in it would be a competition," he said at one point. And in response to a reporter saying he had a shot at the starting role he quipped, "I did?"

So, yes, he went as close as you can get without going over in terms of did he or didn't he say, "there was no quarterback competition." But he was adamant about the fact that he was still going out to compete and trying to get better everyday.

Unfortunately, the simple fact of the matter is that Brandon Weeden is just better than McCoy. Weeden is bigger and stronger than McCoy. He's been more accurate in practice than McCoy. He has a better ability to throw the ball downfield than McCoy.

And I don't want to sound too politically incorrect with this, but McCoy just looks slow on the field sometimes. When he goes through his reads it's as if someone is counting, "One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand..." instead of the "one, two, three, boom" you see when looking at Weeden. It's even apparent during 7-on-7 drills, where there aren't any linemen for McCoy to have to look over. He reads the defense slowly and then has no choice but to go with his checkdown. Watching him in practice has kind of explained the offense last year. McCoy is just slow on the uptake.

In some ways, it pains me to write this because I like McCoy a lot. He's exactly the kind of guy you'd like to date your sister. But that certainly doesn't make him a quality NFL quarterback.

The problem is that McCoy was supposed to be a developmental project. Think about it, when McCoy was originally picked in the third round of the 2010 draft, he was supposed to be the third quarterback behind Jake Delhomme and Seneca Wallace. He was to hold the clipboard and learn for a few years before potentially competing for the starting job.

Then Delhomme and Wallace both got high ankle sprains in 2010 and that plan got shot to hell.

We all know how the story has turned out for McCoy. Could he use a fresh start? Probably. Will he get that chance? I'm not sure. Both McCoy and Wallace have looked like backups in camp, and this team just isn't big enough for three real quarterbacks. (And if you think Thad Lewis counts, you obviously haven't seen him in practice.)

In the end, I do hope we're able to keep McCoy and send Wallace elsewhere. Heaven knows we could use a good backup for the next few years that's actually going to put the team first, and won't unnecessarily change a play at the end of the first half.

McCoy's a professional. He can be that guy.

~MAS