Cleveland Browns: Former quarterbacks were on a preseason rampage
Many of the former quarterbacks of the Cleveland Browns accumulated incredible stats during this most recent 2018 NFL preseason
Cleveland Browns quarterbacks Tyrod Taylor, Baker Mayfield, and Drew Stanton managed to put up impressive stat lines in the preseason, but how do they compare to former Browns quarterbacks who are still in the league?
In all the three current Browns completed 56 passes out of 96 attempts for a 58.5 completion percentage. They went for 694 yards and three touchdowns versus only one interception.
Would you like to guess how many 2018 preseason yards former Browns passed for? Would you guess 300? 400? Probably no one would guess as many as 3,589 yards, but that is the correct answer.
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That is more than five times the yardage total of the Browns (but not including Brogan Roback, since he is now an ex-Brown). On top of that yardage total, they completed 61.5 percent of their passes and managed 23 touchdowns against nine picks.
Incredibly, there are 13 former Browns who were active in the pre-season, and most of them made NFL rosters as backups. That is really part of the explanation for why they put up such huge numbers.
One should not assume that the prodigious preseason achievements indicate a higher talent level than Taylor or Mayfield. On the contrary, the NFL pre-season belongs to backup quarterbacks, not the starters.
For example, old friend Brian Hoyer threw for more yards than his teammate Tom Brady, but everybody knows that Brady is a superstar and Hoyer is a journeyman.
On the other hand, Browns fans are entitled to ask why the team can not hang on to a backup quarterback. It’s not just that the Browns have not been able to land a franchise quarterback, but they find it equally difficult to hang on to a backup quarterback for more than a year.
The Front Office seems to despise backup quarterbacks. Two years is about the limit for the Browns backup, even though others have found stable employment with other teams, notably McCoy who has been a long-term backup in Washington since 2014.
In case you are interested in keeping tabs on former Browns, 13 ex-quarterback are listed below. If you want to split hairs we could include Terrelle Pryor who played quarterback after the emergency in 2016, and MarQueis Gray, who operated the Wildcat for Norv Turner in 2013. However, these guys did not play as quarterbacks this pre-season.
Joe Callahan had a brief stint with the Browns in 2016 as they were almost literally trying to kill off their quarterback corps by not providing pass blocking. He performed well for the Eagles this pre-season, but when your competition is Carson Wentz and Nick Foles…
Austin Davis is the backup quarterback at Seattle, behind Russell Wilson.
Robert Griffin III is backing up Joe Flacco in Baltimore.
Kevin Hogan is a backup quarterback for John Elway and the Denver Broncos, claimed off waivers after a very good preseason with Washington.
Brian Hoyer is the backup for Tom Brady in New England. He put up comparable numbers to Brady, but somehow he might not quite beat him out for the job.
Cody Kessler is the backup for Blake Bortles in Jacksonville, and completed over 70 percent of his passes during the preseason. He put up decent numbers for the Browns in 2016, although Hue Jackson believed that DeShone Kizer was far better, leading to Kessler’s benching last year.
Kizer is the backup QB for Green Bay and has performed very well as the understudy for Aaron Rodgers.
Josh McCown is the consummate backup quarterback, trying to help Sam Darnold become the youngest NFL starting quarterback ever. Good luck with that Josh, you should be starting.
Colt McCoy fought off Kevin Hogan for the backup job in Washington. McCoy has put up very good numbers when called upon in the last several years. His QB rating is 99.4, which isn’t half bad.
Brock Osweiler did well for Miami after being reunited with his former offensive coordinator in Denver, Adam Gase who is now the Head Fish.
Brogan Roback was cut from the Browns after showing an impressive arm and scrambling ability. But sometimes scrambling and indecision go together. Roback possibly could reappear on someone’s practice team later this year
Alex “Youtube” Tanney is the backup quarterback in New York behind Eli Manning, holding the fort down for a while, as Kyle Lauletta develops.
Next. Meet Anthony Zettel, the new DE in Cleveland. dark
Brandon Weeden is still chucking the pigskin for the Houston Texans. He turns 35 next month. He still has the elephant gun arm and seems to have put up decent numbers in the past few years, but has never had team success to go along with it.