There's a lot of talk around the Cleveland Browns about getting a better quarterback than Brandon Weeden -- but the question is, how?
NFL trade rumors 2013: Could Browns deal Brandon Weeden?
The Cleveland Browns aren’t thrilled with Brandon Weeden at quarterback, but with a weak draft class and not much of value to offer, they might be stuck with him.
Dustin Bradford
Weeden didn’t have a great rookie season: sure, he completed 57.4 percent of his passes, a decent number, but he threw 17 interceptions against just 14 touchdowns. That’s why Jason La Canfora of CBS said the team wants to upgrade from Weeden and National Football Post reported that the team was looking into a trade.
But as Will Burge of ESPNCleveland writes, moving up from Weeden is easier said than done. First off, there aren't a whole lot of worthy quarterbacks available in this draft class. Geno Smith could go first overall to the Kansas City Chiefs, and its easy to argue that Weeden is a better quarterback than Smith could become. If the team wanted to get rid of Weeden and start over with somebody in this class, they might be stuck with an inferior quarterback with less experience than Weeden and more turnover issues in Rob Chudzinski's first year at head coach. Secondly, there's not much trade value for Weeden. He might have been a rookie this past year, but he's 29 years old. That means that there isn't a whole lot of upside. Burge argues that the Browns would get little more than a fourth-round pick for Weeden, a pretty bad return on their investment considering they used a first-rounder less than a year ago on him.
It’s not hard to see why the Browns would want to move in a different direction at quarterback, but it is hard to come up with plausible ways they could improve on their situation. The Browns likely don’t have much in the way of playoff hope in Chudzinski’s first year in charge, so it might be best to wait a year and see if Weeden improves at all.
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