Colt McCoy: What Do We Really Know About Cleveland Browns QB After One Year?

Sunday's pathetic loss to the Houston Texans marked the 16th career start for Colt McCoy with the Cleveland Browns. This means McCoy's "rookie season" is officially over, and I think it's about time to see where we stand with the guy whom we hoped would be the franchise quarterback.

Through 16 games, this is what McCoy's stat line looks like: 312 CMP, 530 ATT, 58.9 CMP%, 3,340 YDS, 6.3 AVG, 16 TD, 15 INT.

That stat line is about what you'd expect from any rookie QB. Nothing too impressive, but also nothing too bad. However, stats don't tell the whole story. What has the team looked like on the field with him at the helm?

The NFL today is a passing league. The days of teams winning Super Bowls with Brad Johnson and Trent Dilfer at QB are over. It's the most important position in all of sports, and if a team isn't right at QB it could break its season.

I can say this right off the bat about McCoy: He's better than both Derek Anderson and Brady Quinn—not exactly a glowing endorsement, but still.

Unlike Anderson, McCoy will never lose you a football by turning over the ball at the most in-oportune time.

And unlike pretty-boy Quinn, McCoy actually has an ounce of leadership blood in him. In fact, that's probably the best thing we can say about McCoy to this point.

He is a leader. You can that see with the way that he carries himself on and off the field. The other players recognize him as the leader of this football team and they all have his back. McCoy plays with a warrior's mentality—especially these last couple weeks.

That's all well and good, but it only takes you so far. As a person, Colt McCoy seems like a great guy. He's a devout Christian, plays hard, works hard, has been a winner since high school, has boyish good looks...

But none of that wins football games in the NFL, where his career record is 5-11.

I love it when people talk a player and say, "He's a just a winner." Well ,just about everybody is a winner in high school and college. Ken Dorsey and Craig Krenzel were great winners in college. That doesn't mean jack for the pros.

In the NFL it's all about the tools that you have as a player and if you're smart enough to play the position.

I think McCoy is pretty smart, but what do I really know? Through 16 games I can't think of too many instances where I saw him make throws or bad reads that you just didn't understand. Derek Anderson had about 12 occurrences a game where you were left scratching your head and wondering what he possibly could have been thinking. I don't worry about that with McCoy.

The real question is, "Does he have the tools to be a good QB?"

And sadly, not only do we not know yet, I'm not sure if we'll find out the rest of this season.

The way this wonderful West Coast offense is being run right now tells us nothing about how good McCoy is. And, more specifically, the ineptitude of the offensive line is giving us nothing either.

Without mincing words, the offensive line sucks really bad right now. It's just straight-up terrible.

Look, we know McCoy can throw a nice pass out of a three-step drop that will get you four to six yards, but that's not going to win any games doing that all day.

Unfortunately, on any longer of a drop than that he's needing to run for his life because the line is incapable of not only picking up blitzes but even defending a base four-man rush.

This is all before we get to the fact that McCoy's top targets are a former college QB and a rookie who didn't play at all last year. We could also bring up the fact that there is no running game (this just in—2.1 yards per carry won't get it done).

I want to believe McCoy is a good QB and that he has the potential to be very good. We have seen a couple glimpses this year, but nothing to give us a definitive answer.

In these next eight games we better get it figured out. What happens if in the draft the Browns are sitting there and a guy like Matt Barkley is still on the board?

Is McCoy the guy? How is anyone—Pat Shurmer, Tom Heckert—supposed to figure it out when he's wearing defenders every other snap?

And you think it's bad now? Just wait until the gauntlet at the end of the season when we play Baltimore and Pittsburgh four of the last five games. If the offensive line isn't any better by then then, Cleveland will need a new QB for sure because McCoy may not survive.

You can follow me on Twitter @ClevelandFlack.