Brian Hoyer had a chance to lock up the starting quarterback job with just a halfway decent performance against an average at best Washington defense and he failed miserably.
Hoyer had a chance to get the Browns in the end zone for the first time in a family day scrimmage and two preseason games and couldn’t do it. Hoyer missed a wide open Andrew Hawkins in the end zone in the second quarter. The pass sailed behind Hawkins, off his fingertips and to the ground, incomplete.
On the play before, Hoyer put a pass in the redzone right on the numbers to Josh Gordon on a quick slant and he promptly dropped it. So when Hoyer does throw a good pass, the receivers drop it. When the receivers are wide open, Hoyer has missed them badly the last two weeks.
In 2 preseason games Hoyer is a combined 8 for 20 for 108 yards with 0 touchdowns and 0 interceptions. His QB rating in the preseason is 57.9.
So Hoyer’s poor performance gave Johnny Manziel an opportunity to steal the job away from the St. Ignatius grad, but like the receivers, Manziel dropped that chance. He too missed receivers who were open and is finding out that he won’t be able to escape onrushing first team defenders in the NFL as easily as he did in college.
The two quarterbacks who are battling for the starting job combined to go 4 for 13 in the first half for 45 yards, with 2 sacks and just 3 points against Washington’s first team defense for the most part.
Mike Pettine may need 2 more preseason games to determine who deserves to be his starting QB. I thought for sure it was Brian Hoyer’s job, and if you’re forcing me to pick one, I’d probably still go with Hoyer. However I am less sure now then I was 24 hours ago.
There is one thing I do know for sure is currently the Browns don’t have a legitimate starting quarterback right now and the wide receivers still stink. That’s not a good combination when you’re just three weeks away from your regular season opener!
