I'm not a football guy. Like Keys, I've spent my professional life in the world of education. I have read a great deal of academic articles on expertise, and I think that body of research is applicable here. Much of the research on expertise has been conducted with highly trained chess players and musicians. The primary take-away from this field of research is that these individuals have spent 10,000 hours or 10 years of their life "deliberately practicing" to become experts. Deliberate practice is essentially dedicated work; going through the motions does not count.
This is why a quarterback like Johnny is such a risk. By selecting Johnny, an organization is betting on his willingness to dedicate an inordinate amount of time towards learning. The organization also must believe, to some degree, that the individual has some innate ability to speed up the process of gaining expertise. I have not read a lot on spacial intelligence, but I've thought that this might be something that Johnny naturally possesses. It would be advantageous for a quarterback to have this quality.
Finally, it's important to define the psychological term, automaticity. This is, for all intents in purposes, the goal of every quarterback. This is why even expert quarterbacks continue to watch so much film. For most of us, breaking down a play after-the-fact is relatively simple. We can rewind, watch multiple times, and determine what decision should have been made. What makes a quarterback special is that they are able to do this in real time. The have 10-20 seconds before the snap to analyze the defense, and 2-3 seconds after the snap to confirm and adjust. Conscious thought is not a satisfactory vehicle for this sort of decision making. These decisions have to be made in he subconscious, automatically. They are reactions more than conscious thought.
So, the question is whether or not Johnny has such a chip on his shoulder that he is willing to crawl into a hole and immerse himself in film analysis and repetition to such a degree that he's able to come into the season next year a relative expert. This says nothing about the additional obstacles he faces related to his relative small stature. His ridiculous throws last week are not my concern. These can be corrected relatively easily. And, I think he has some special traits. The Browns, however, must weigh his commitment against the need to find someone further along in the process of gaining the traits required to be an NFL quarterback.