What About Brandon?

This is all educated guesswork.  I've collected enough input to put this together, but could be a little or a lot wrong:

You'll recall that Weeden was putrid in his inaugural game vs. the Eagles.  But then, he rallied during the next few games, and looked like a talented rookie doing as well as could be reasonably expected, given his impaired rookie running back, raw rookie reciever, and the complexity of Shurmer's West Coast offense.

Then, he hit a wall.  This is when he refused to throw "on time", and then even to obviously wide open recievers, and ate it or threw it away after seven or more seconds.

Well, my theory is rather involved, so I'll try to break it down into chunks:

1: After a few games, enemy defensive coordinators and individual corners and safeties had some film on him/this Browns' West Coast offense.  The coordinators made adjustments in their coverages, and the individual players made their own adjustments.

One of these was to jump routes.

Remember, this is a timing offense.  They knew that Weeden was a gunslinger in college not ideally suited to this offense, so he had to be mechanical and predictable in his reads, and that, as a rookie, he would be slow to change in response to adversity.

One cornerback did his homework. He knew that if this reciever did this, and this reciever did that, his reciever was the primary target.  If he ran a certain way, the reciever would break his route of exactly here, and the ball would be on it's way to here, so he set it up and broke to that spot for a pick or at least a deflection at the right time.

2: I project here:  I am lazy.  Brandon is certainly not as lazy as me, but (I believe) is not as obsessively dedicated as every great quarterback is, and (I believe) didn't cope with this stuff as he should have.  (I suspect, maybe).

The correct reaction would be to spend 6-10 more hours in the film room each week studying the upcoming individual opponent as intensely as they had studied him, concentrating on breakups and interceptions.  As they had studied him for "tells", he could study them in coverage.

This cornerback looked down--he was checking out the yard-markers, getting ready to make his move.  He drifted away a little, setting up his break.  He slowed down before he would have, had he not known what was coming...

2a: He reacted as at least the younger me would have reacted, ie: "This is bullshit".

2c: Not having been a good soldier in an offense he hated and in which he knew he didn't belong, he grew hesitant.  He stopped throwing before the break.  Every cornerback and safety looked like he was about to jump the route.

3: He's supposed to check down, and he did.  But it was happening too fast.  He looked to the secondary reciever, and quickly had to read that coverage and decide in a split second, and just couldn't pull the trigger.

It mushroomed.  He's blown the throw now, and had to improvise, but the passrushers were closing and he had to move.  He kept his eyes downfield as he was supposed to, and he even saw guys who were open but

4: Throughout his college carreer, he hit guys who were open, but in the NFL (unless it's a Romeo Crennel defense) nobody gets that open.  It looked to Brandon like everybody was Ed Reed, and he was everywhere.

He lost his confidence.  He no longer trusted his own judgement.  He ate the ball, threw it out of bounds, or tried an Elway/Montana/RG3 throw while running--and he aint them.

5: Much of this is on Shurmer.  While the Shanahans, Chud, the guys in Seattle, and even Bruce Arians in Indi tweaked their offenses to help their unique rookie quarterbacks transition to the NFL, Square-Peg Shurmer made no adjustments whatsoever to help his shotgun gunslinger.  He also proudly announced that he would run his entire telephone-book playbook from day one--no coddling here, by God!

6: The West Coast offense covers the breadth of the field from three to twenty yards deep.  The recievers slant and cross steeply within that range, with rarely more than one, and often none, going deeper.  Sneaky zone corners and safeties lurk in this congestion, poised to ruin Brandon's day.

Joe Montana was once asked what was the one thing that helped him the most, and he said it was his vision.  According to Joe, he had excellent peripheral vision, and could look straight upfield and see all the recievers running all their patterns.  For him, there was no checking down.  He just picked out the best-looking pairing, and didn't even turn his head to until he was starting his throw.

That's rare, and Brandon doesn't see like that.  Hell, he was a pitcher, so whereas Montana might be said to have fish-eye lenses, Weeden's got zoom lens eyes!  He's snapping his head left and right, scanning and refocusing, and saying to himself this is bullshit this is bullshit this is bullshit...

He was probably angry.  He probably stated his case to Shurmer, and Shurmer probably said something like "This has worked for a lot of different quarterbacks.  It's a very successful system.  It just takes awhile to learn.  Hang in there.  It will come to you."

...and made no adjustments whatsoever.  The 22 year-old Weeden might have accepted this, but the 29-year old walked out angrier, and the frustration made it harder for him.

7: The Turner/Chud offense does rely on timing, but the routes are almost universally deeper, with rare crosses and mostly slants (including some zigzags). Because of this focus farther upfield, the quarterback has to see closer to 90 than to 140 degrees.

The quarterback doesn't have to reset his feet as often because of these decreased angles.

8: Weeden was a shotgun quarterback.  You can't run too much shotgun in the NFL because it's hard to run from that set-up.  The back gets the ball deep in the backfield, and the defense is already penetrating and converging on the quarterback.

But the pistol is a half-shotgun.  The quarterback gets the ball right about where he would be after taking a snap under center back three to five steps, and you can run from this just as you would conventionally.  And this offense will (trust me) use a lot of pistol.  (Note: The pistol is NOT the read-option, ok?)

9: The shallower angles of the slants and deeper patterns make it nearly impossible for any sneaky bastards to jump routes or otherwise con the quarterback or manipulate the recievers.

They can try shell coverage to keep everything in front of them, but this sets up Brandon's favorite pattern: the come-back.  And he'll do that all day!  And slants are fine, now that they're not all right in front of him, and he clearly sees a beaten cornerback and a safety too far away to help.

10: The Turner/Chud passing offense is slower-moving by design.  This is why the fullback or at least an H-back is needed, along with top-flight pass-protection.  This is why a strong running game is mandatory; to prevent the defense from sending two or more blitzers every time.

In conclusion, I believe that Brandon Weeden can succeed in 2013.

...or Ryan Mallett.