New Browns coach Rob Chudzinski said last month that it would be “premature” to call Brandon Weeden the team’s starting quarterback for the 2013 season, something that doesn’t seem to have taken Weeden by surprise.
During an appearance in Oklahoma on Friday, Weeden said that he fully expects to have competition for the starting job in Cleveland. Weeden called it “fun” to compete to try to win a job and that he wouldn’t be doing things any differently than Chudzinski and company if he were making the decisions for the franchise.
“I expect competition. That’s the way professional sports are. Unless you’re Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees or these guys, you might as well expect for somebody to try to come take your job,” Weeden said, via the Associated Press. “We’re talking about a multibillion-dollar corporation, essentially. There’s going to be changes. Obviously, we’ve already seen some. But there’s going to be competition. The guys that drafted me are no longer there, so I fully expect there to be competition. I would want competition. I want to go into camp and compete. If I had won 10 or 11 games last year, that may not be the case, but we weren’t able to get that done.”
Weeden said it was “exciting” to get a chance to play for Norv Turner and said that he’s spoken to Troy Aikman about playing for Turner. It’s hard to assess Weeden’s chances of holding onto the starting job without knowing the identity of who his competition will be, but his attitude should benefit him in any battle for the job. The choice will be based on a lot more than attitude, of course, but Weeden’s chances wouldn’t be too good if he were pouting about the fact that the new regime wasn’t sold on his abilities.