Manziel and McCown

A lot of pundits are talking about Johnny's second half last Thursday.  The Bengals kept him corralled in the pocket, and he accomplished nothing.

That's true, but it's not all his fault.  Unlike most of these guys, I count dropped passes as accurate and timely, and blame the receivers.  I don't pretend the pass never happened.

It also matters that Manziel is inexperienced, and can't be fairly judged by one half of one game against a formidable defense.

As Les Levine really needs to try to fathom, reciting his statistics thus far is rather stupid, since these include most of two games last season in which he was still a punk, and totally unprepared.

Even isolating his statistics for this season is dumb, because he is still inexperienced, and very early in his growth curve.

Nor is it very smart to assume that Josh McCown necessarily would have done better.  Maybe.  Maybe not.

And does an injured Josh McCown give the Browns the best chance to win in Pittsburgh?

Maybe.  Maybe not!

There's a whole lot of assuming going on around here.  This isn't all about the quarterback in the first place.

Either quarterback must work with the same receivers and alleged running game.  

In fairness, against all odds the career backup has ranked among the top tier of quarterbacks this season despite these challenges.

Talking heads keep expecting his wheels to come off, and he keeps surprising them.

Johnny can't meet that standard YET.  But he's generally done pretty well, and here's the deal:

He'll get better.  Josh won't.  He's healthy.  Josh isn't.  At this point in time, Manziel vs McCown is a much tighter race than most of you think, and starting the healthy kid is the logical move...Mike.

Of Pittsburgh in general, they retain plenty of offensive firepower even without Big Ben or Belle, but their defense isn't as good as those of the last three teams the Browns faced, once you set the HYPE aside.

Manziel could beat them, just as McCown could.  They can't do what Cincinnati did.  Their secondary can't stay with these receivers as long, so when a quarterback squirms and wriggles loose to buy a few more seconds, it can go deep in a hurry.

Johnny can't yet read coverages as well as McCown, but this  "creative" stuff comes naturally to him.

That's why Mike Pettine is a blockhead, just like Mike Hargrove and Marty, for insisting that the injured and still vulnerable old vet has to start over the healthy kid if he can crawl into the field.

It's just plain dumb. Terry Pluto, as he so often does, concurs.