Written by Jerry Roche

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Some Browns fans are beginning to doubt the ability of Brandon Weeden to become a top-notch playoff-caliber quarterback in the National Football League. They are pointing to three other rookie QBs who have had more success this season than Weeden: Robert Griffin III of Washington, Russell Wilson of Seattle and Andrew Luck of Indianapolis. Wilson and Luck have each won six games, Griffin three games, and even Ryan Tannehill in Miami has won four. So far, Weeden's Browns have just two victories.

However, what is generally overlooked when discussing QB ratings and QB effectiveness is the impact of a good running game on the overall success of an offense, especially an offense run by a rookie quarterback.

All we’re hearing nowadays is how important a vertical passing game has become in the NFL. What we’re not hearing is the fact that a good rushing game is still vital to a good passing game — just as it’s been since the days of the Duluth Eskimos and Canton Bulldogs.

And there’s no better example than the unfolding stories of this year’s rookie NFL passers.

The adjacent chart shows exactly how a rookie’s QB rating is directly related to that team’s success rushing the football. Exactly. There are no exceptions: the better the ground game, the better the passer rating — and the numbers are almost completely in proportion, too.

Though this statistic doesn’t necessarily hold true throughout the entire NFL, it’s exceptionally relevant when you’re talking about rookie quarterbacks, who are still trying to find their way in the league. They have to get the plays from the bench (in the case of the Browns, not the easiest thing in the world). They have to call the plays. They have to make defensive reads, both before and after the snap. They have to think out their check-off options, if necessary. They have to foresee where their receivers are going to be and make their throws accordingly. And they have to judge the reaction times of the best defensive backs in the world.

Look at passing attempts to get an additional indication of how an effective rushing game impacts game planning and passing success. Griffin (262), Wilson (253) and Tannehill (280) have all attempted fewer than 300 passes so far. Luck and Weeden have both attempted more than 300.

While everyone is hailing Griffin’s passing success, they sometimes fail to mention that the Redskins’ Alfred Morris has rushed for a 4.8-yard average and Griffin himself has rushed for 529 yards and a 6.4 average.

Wilson in Seattle has Marshawn Lynch to gain valuable yardage on the ground with 1,005 rushes in 212 attempts for a 4.7-yard average.

The only exception to this rule seems to be in Indianapolis, where Donald Brown has just 361 yards and a 4.1 average.

Meanwhile, Weeden has been forced to throw the ball 336 times, second only to Luck, and the team is 27th in the league in rushing with 803 yards — most of that courtesy of another rookie, Trent Richardson.

Certainly, Weeden’s low QB rating also has something to do with a stable of inexperienced receivers, who have dropped 31 passes to lead the league so far. Had the receivers caught 20 of those, for an average gain of 6.1 yards (Weeden’s overall average), Weeden’s QB rating would increase from 67.9 to 74.4 — certainly not a major jump, but at least comparable to the low bar of Colt McCoy’s 2010-2011 rating of 74.6.

Indeed, the only thing that McCoy and Weeden seem to have in common in their pro careers is their head coach, whose “West Coast Offense” places too much value on short passing, dump-offs and yards after catch, and too little value on establishing the run game and stretching the field. Clearly, even with two different QBs at the helm over the past two years, the current system does not seem to be working in today’s National Football League. A combined QB rating of barely more than 70.0 over the course of Pat Shurmur’s two-year head coaching stint is nothing to write home about.

Both Weeden and his predecessor McCoy deserve better.