Brian Hoyer Led NFL In Interceptable Passes
While the Cleveland Browns try to figure out what they are going to do this off-season some Browns fans are calling for the return of Brian Hoyer. Many point to Hoyer leading the Browns to a 7 – 4 mark before the offense fell apart. Some blame the injury to Alex Mack, others the return of Josh Gordon and still others the pressure of Johnny Manziel.
Maybe some of those things came together to cause problems but Hoyer’s stats are a little misleading. While his stats are not great, they do not look so bad as to outright blow him off as an option. In 14 games he threw for 3,326 yards, 12 touchdowns and 13 interceptions. The biggest issue is that he only completed 55% of his passes. Those accuracy issues also caused him to lead the league in number of interceptable passes, according to one study:
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36? That means 23 of his passes that were interceptable were dropped by defenders. Not overly surprising if you watched all of his games. There were many times where Hoyer threw a pass right to a defender and the defender dropped it. Some of the time it seemed like it surprised the defender that the pass came right to them.
So while many point to his numbers as a reason to re-sign him, this number, which isn’t on the standard stat sheet, could point in the opposite direction.
What Hoyer was able to do was lead men. He made mistakes, he threw bad passes and his arm strength is limited. However he kept a team together that we are now learning was falling apart from the inside, made appropriate audibles and hit some big plays.
Is he a perfect QB? No. Is he the long term answer for the Browns? No. Did he get lucky with a lot of interceptable passes this year? Yes.
Is Brian Hoyer the best option for the Browns next year? That is up to GM Ray Farmer and HC Mike Pettine (and hopefully not the owner or president) this off-season.
What are your thoughts on Brian Hoyer?