5 Cleveland Browns quarterbacks who were not as bad as we thought
Hoyer the Destroyer is 10-6 for his Cleveland career
Brian Hoyer and Baker Mayfield are the only quarterbacks to have career records over .500 as starters for the Cleveland Browns in the post-Modell era. Brian Hoyer went 10-6 as the starter over two seasons for coach Mike Pettine and then was benched in order to make room for superstar Johnny Manziel, who went 0-2 as Hoyer’s replacement in 2014.
Realizing he had no shot to compete against Manziel, who was totally loved by the Cleveland front office and ownership, he left as a free agent to play for the Houston Texans, where he went 5-4 in 2015.
Brian Hoyer, the kid from St. Ignatius High in Cleveland, went undrafted after an unspectacular career at Michigan State University. But the Patriots liked him and he won a job backing up Tom Brady for three years, which is not a bad place to do an apprenticeship. After being signed and released by the Arizona Cardinals, he wound up with the Browns and coach Rob Chudzinski saw something in him and started him when erstwhile superstar-of-the-future quarterback Brandon Weeden went down.
The Browns won three games in a row, but Hoyer went down with an ACL injury. The next season they had a new coach in Mike Pettine and a shiny new quarterback in Johnny Manziel, but Pettine chose Hoyer as the starter. The team started off 7-4, then lost two games in a row, the last one by one point to Indianapolis, and then the Browns had the brilliant concept that perhaps by switching quarterbacks they might reverse their fortunes, go on a winning streak, and win the Super Bowl.
We aren’t sure if that was Jimmy Haslam III’s idea, Ray Farmer’s idea, or coach Mike Pettine’s idea, but we do know that Johnny Manziel was not ready to play football and the team wound up 7-9 and out of the playoffs.
Giving up on Hoyer when the team was 7-6 was one of the dumbest decisions in team history.
The Browns decided to let horrible Hoyer and his 10-6 lifetime record as the starter leave via free agency so that they could institute the new Golden Age of Manziel as quickly as possible.
There was nothing really wrong with Hoyer. He was not a superstar, but he should have been allowed to start until such time as someone could displace him by virtue of better play. But Manziel, the son of an oilman, had an immediate friend in Jimmy Haslam III, who was also the son of an oilman. That proved to be an unfortunate combination, as giving Manziel positions and privilege he had not earned was definitely not good for him.
Just to be on the safe side, however, the Browns hedged their bets by signing Josh McCown, a veteran journeyman who was coming off a successful run replacing Jay Cutler in Chicago.