Did Browns Make The Right Decision?

After three preseason games the Cleveland Browns have announced that they will start Bryan Hoyer over Johnny Manziel on Week 1 of the NFL season.

Johnny Manziel has a big following, much like Tim Tebow had a couple years ago. In other words, the pressure was on the Browns to start Manziel, but after a preseason showdown between Manziel and Hoyer, it is Hoyer that the Browns have opted to go with.

Neither quarterback was very impressive in their showings in the preseason thus far. Manziel has avoided making mistakes but his yardage only hovered around the 60 yard mark in all his games and his accuracy suffered in Game 3 throwing for 7-of-17. Hoyer, though, did not perform any better.

Many are quick to point out that Manziel never really got a shot at truly starting, but this was made clear from the beginning. Johnny Football was going to have to do something amazing during the preseason in order to win the starting job, from the very get go the Browns staff said that the starting job was Hoyer’s to lose.

Manziel did not do anything spectacular during the preseason. He did however make headlines with his middle fingers, which most likely hurt his chances as leading Cleveland.

This means that Manziel will likely be spending much of his season on the bench, which is not necessarily a bad thing for Johnny Football.

Manziel is clearly struggling adapting his game to the pros. He is still relying too much on his feet and discovering that defenders used to shutting down the games of run and gun quarterbacks like Colin Kaepernick, Cam Newton and RGIII, are having no trouble finding Manziel in the backfield.

Scrambling around and waiting for plays to develop may have worked in college, but in the pros it is not an option. Manziel has open receivers on the field and is either not seeing them or fears tossing the ball over the middle. 

Manziel is relying too much on his instincts when he needs to learn to poise himself in the pocket and relying on his brains and arm. He will develop these skills and when he does he may just be the saving grace fans in Cleveland hoped he would be this year.