Written by Chris Hutchison

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It's a development that means next to nothing, since there's almost no chance that he starts the season, but Colt McCoy took the first reps in drills today in Berea.  Brandon Weeden went second, then Seneca Wallace brought up the rear.

On one hand, I can see the angle - try and make the rookie "earn" the starting job over the "veteran".  On the other, it seems disingenuous to keep up the charade and take snaps away from the guy that will be starting.  The Cleveland Browns as an organization were clearly unhappy with Colt's performance and tried everything they could to obtain any available upgrade.  Any talk of them being "happy with Colt" is lip service that they are required to make.

Tom Heckert put it most bluntly at a recent Akron Browns Backers event:  "The best guy is going to play, and we fully expect Brandon to be that guy.  That's our goal, is to have him be the guy."

"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."

They got their "guy", and he's going to be 29 in October, so any scenario that doesn't have him starting means that picking him at #22 was an unqualified disaster.  Because if Weeden can't even beat out McCoy, then there's little chance he'll be a starting-caliber QB in this league - ever.

However, as I stated in the beginning, for now, this development is semantics and has almost nothing to do with who will be donning the starting cape come August.

But if they continue this farce into the Preseason games, you should be afraid.  On many different levels.