Cleveland Browns coach Mike Pettine: Brian Hoyer’s lead over Johnny Manziel not ‘insurmountable’
By Jack Crosby
As it stands right now early in the month of June, the consensus is that when the Cleveland Browns take the field for their opening game in 2014, Brian Hoyer will be the starting quarterback under center, not first-round pick Johnny Manziel.
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No one really knows for sure how big the lead is that Hoyer holds over Manziel in the quarterback race at this point, but Browns head coach Mike Pettine stated on Thursday that it’s not “insurmountable.”
Manziel is going to have to do a lot of work to surpass Hoyer, but like Pettine said, it’s not impossible by any means.
The edge that Hoyer holds right now is the fact that when he did step in for the struggling Brandon Weeden last season, he showed a ton of promise in regards to leading this organization. Manziel, obviously, is an unproven commodity, while Hoyer has proven his worth on the field already in some capacity.
So far in practices, Manziel has not really done anything to hurt himself in his pursuit of the job, while at the same time Hoyer hasn’t done much to lose it neither.
Putting aside most of the regular Manziel media hoopla, this should end up being one of the more fun position battles to watch throughout the league as the 2014 season approaches.