The Browns Have Moved on from Colt McCoy for More Than Just His Dad's Comments

Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio believed that Brad McCoy, father of quarterback Colt McCoy, may have done his son a disservice when openly complaining about the Cleveland Browns putting his son back in the game after suffering a concussion against the Pittsburgh Steelers last December.

Now, it seems that this could be true—or at least partly true.

ESPN Cleveland's Tony Grossi reported today that a source inside the Browns organization said that the elder McCoy's comments bothered team president Mike Holmgren so much that it was as that time he realized the team needed to move on from Colt as the starter.

Colt did indeed suffer a concussion in that game and an incensed Brad took to the media, telling the Plain Dealer's Mary Kay Cabot that the Browns should have never put his son back in the game and he further insinuated the team didn't do enough to evaluate his symptoms.

In today's report, Florio doesn't dispute that Brad's comments likely angered Holmgren, considering that NFL teams prefer the players' parents to not get involved in decision-making and Holmgren's propensity to have a bit of a temper. However, I don't think it was Brad's words alone that made Colt fall out of favor with the front office and coaching staff.

If Colt had displayed the talent of a Cam Newton or Tom Brady, then Brad's words would have rolled right off the back of Holmgren and company—so what if his father's mad? If the quarterback is a proven winner, you get angry and then you move on.

Even though Holmgren, general manager Tom Heckert and head coach Pat Shurmur went to great lengths to assure everyone who would listen that they hoped Colt would be their starter in 2012 (while in the same breath praising the benefits of quarterback competition), they went and selected Brandon Weeden in the first round of last week's draft.

The powers that be in Cleveland spent a lot of time publicly complimenting Weeden, even though they continued to fall back on their hope for Colt's improvement in the future. That latter bit may have all just been a smokescreen, the kind we are all familiar with around draft time, because now it looks like Colt's time as a starter is up, and Weeden will be the one to supplant him.

I'm sure Holmgren did not appreciate Brad's words, or Brad's likely heavy-handed involvement in Colt's career, but that's not reason enough to take a starting job away from a quarterback. No, the reason is because of what Colt has managed to do (and to not do) on the field more than anything else.

This, it seems, is just yet another of Holmgren's well-crafted smoke screens.

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