By Bill Livingston, The Plain Dealer
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The most popular man in a losing football town is always the backup quarterback. Still, Colt McCoy was more popular than most.
Several factors were at work, including a glittering college career at a big-time program, the University of Texas. McCoy did more at the previous level than anyone who took snaps for the Browns since Ken Dorsey -- whose powderpuff arm revealed him to be a product of the talent around him at Miami -- and Vinny Testaverde -- who lost, like McCoy, in the collegiate championship game, but because of five interceptions and a poor performance, not an injury early in the game that made so many of us ask, "What if ...?"
Life is not fair. McCoy was proof of that, both in the early shoulder injury that forced him from the Alabama-Texas BCS championship game after the 2009 season, and in the way he was treated by a Browns regime that first didn't want him and then did little to help him.
Shunned by coach Eric Mangini and offensive coordinator Brian Daboll, McCoy finally was called on to substitute for Seneca Wallace, the backup to over-the-hill, injured starter Jake Delhomme in 2010. McCoy showed promise, despite the fact that his promotion sent Wallace into a petulant pout. Wallace often stood as far as possible from McCoy on the sidelines when the Browns' defense was on the field. This happened a lot, it being the Browns' defense.
Considerable time could be spent, therefore, examining the frostiest relationship between teammates this side of quarterback Brady Quinn and defensive lineman Shaun Smith. That was a contentious relationship in which the former was punched in the face by the latter.
Mike Holmgren, the vague, ineffectual football supremo who fired Mangini, spent a third-round draft choice on McCoy. But Holmgren also liked Wallace after their years together in Seattle, so he never stepped in to demand professionalism. By the way, Trent Dilfer never tutored Charlie Frye after Dilfer, another bright idea that winked out like a cheap light bulb, was benched. The Browns have tolerated such divas for years.
McCoy's 2011 season as a starter ended with a concussion inflicted by Pittsburgh's James Harrison, a situation which the Browns handled so poorly, because of a multitude of injury problems, that the NFL soon changed its medical protocols for dealing with head injuries.
More than the concussion, McCoy was sacrificed to the "philosopher's stone" theory of offense Holmgren and his hand-picked coach Pat Shurmur seemed to embrace. In the Dark Ages, alchemists searched for a substance which could turn lead into gold. They called it the philosopher's stone, but, unfortunately, it didn't exist.
For their part, the Browns sent McCoy out to play with an offense in which turnstiles could have replaced the offensive line, in order to better slow down the pass rush, always excepting left tackle Joe Thomas; in which drafted receivers could not get open; and in which the focus of the attack, Peyton Hillis, turned out to be a muscle-bound malingerer.
When the Browns drafted Brandon Weeden, who was 28 years old at the time and had played minor league baseball before playing collegiately at Oklahoma State, the McCoy era, such as it was, was over before it began. Big-armed quarterbacks tease coaches and get more chances than soft-tossers like McCoy. Weeden was handed the job before last season. The competitive McCoy had no chance, because there was no real competition.
The fact that Weeden had a mediocre year in every way did little to enhance McCoy's stature, nor did Holmgren's departure during the season for a land of umbrella drinks and a life of comfort and ease -- although, minus the beach drinks, he had pretty much reached the comfort and ease level here.
During my interview before last season with Pro Football Hall of Famer Roger Staubach, who served in the Navy before joining the Dallas Cowboys as an aging rookie in the 1960s, Staubach abruptly asked me how McCoy was doing with the Browns. "I've thrown with Colt McCoy. He has a strong arm. He's pretty fast. I think he's going to be a good NFL quarterback," Staubach said.
I never forgot that comment. Who's to say Staubach doesn't know this quarterback better than the Browns did? I'll be surprised if McCoy becomes more than a backup with the 49ers, but he has a better chance with a new start and a smart organization than he ever had here.
To reach Bill Livingston:
blivingston@plaind.com, 216-999-4672
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