Cleveland Browns quarterback Brandon Weeden was in over his head on Sunday, and the more the stats are analyzed the worse it looks.

It was a long afternoon for Weeden.

It was apparent during the game that Weeden was struggling with the deep and intermediate passes, overthrowing multiple open receivers. According to Pro Football Focus, Weeden was 0-7 with two interceptions on balls thrown at least 10 yards downfield.

While everyone expected Weeden to struggle, no one expected this. In fact, his ability to get the ball downfield was supposed to be the area in which he provided the most significant upgrade over Colt McCoy. In 2011, McCoy completed just 44.1 percent of his passes beyond 10 yards – a disappointing number, but far better than Weeden’s opening game performance.

Looking beyond the stats, the concern with Weeden is the fact that he wasn’t just off target with his throws. He missed multiple open receivers, include two in the end zone, by a wide margin which killed multiple Browns drives.

To make matters worse, the Eagles front seven wasn’t applying much pressure to Weeden. He was pressured on 13 of his 38 dropbacks (34.2%) – that’s not an unreasonable performance by the offensive line. On plays when he wasn’t pressured, he completed just 10 of 24 passes (41.7%) including two interceptions. That’s a stat line that must improve dramatically if the Browns are going to generate any type of offense this year.

You couldn’t have scripted a worse debut for Cleveland Browns quarterback Brandon Weeden.

It was a long day for Weeden against the Eagles

They day started with Weeden getting caught under the American flag during pregame ceremonies. He then proceeded to throw four interceptions en route a 5.1 quarterback rating – the lowest in the NFL since Jeff Garcia posted a 0.0 in 2004.

Weeden also managed to complete more passes to Eagles defensive backs Kurt Coleman and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie than Mohamed Massaquoi, Josh Cribbs and Greg Little combined.

The issue for Weeden was his accuracy. He missed open receivers on a number of occasions, including twice overthrowing wide-open targets in the end zone. It’s clear he has a long way to go before he’s ready to compete at this level.

Cleveland Browns head coach Pat Shurmur has announced that rookie Brandon Weeden will sit on Thursday, giving the nod for the final preseason game to Colt McCoy.

The Browns announced weeks ago that Weeden was the starter, and typically starting quarterbacks sit out the final preseason game. But Weeden isn’t your typical starter. He’s struggled the past two preseason games and many fans were hoping to see Weeden get a few more reps under his belt before the season opener.

The Cleveland Browns have already settled on Brandon Weeden as their starter, but his preseason debut was less than impressive. Fortunately Game 2 went a little more smoothly. After the game Weededn stated  ”It was definitely an upgrade for me over last week. I just wanted to go out and get better, and I think I did that.”

While Weeden did improve, he still struggled under pressure. One play nearly lead to disaster for Weeden when the collapsing pocket forced him to fire a pass across the middle right into the arms of A.J. Hawk, who failed to corral the errant throw.

Overall, this was definitely a step in the right direction for Weeden, but by no means should Browns fans expect a Cam Newton or Andy Dalton like rookie season from their signal caller.