Brian Hoyer is headed to the Houston Texans, per an NBC Sports report.
For the first half of last season, Hoyer appeared to be that rarest of beasts: a stable force under center for the Cleveland Browns. As of late November, Cleveland was 7-4, and the word "playoffs" was being mentioned in the same sentence as "Cleveland" with words like "never happen" and "hopeless dream" nowhere near.
But then some combination of regression to the mean, Manziel-mania, and general Cleveland malaise combined to torpedo Hoyer's promising season, and the Browns finished the year 7-9. Johnny Manziel took over for a brief period late in the year, and the Browns even turned to undrafted rookie Connor Shaw for some measure of salvation. (It didn't work.) The result was that Cleveland, which once had the possibility of holding two marquee quarterbacks in its hands, instead left 2014 with a smoking pit at the quarterback position.
Hoyer's free agency status was always a question for Cleveland, although back in October it was more along the lines of "How are we going to hang onto this guy and still pay future franchise savior Manziel?" Once Cleveland opted to go with Josh McCown for 2015 and beyond, the writing was on the wall for Hoyer.
Still up in the air is the fate of Johnny Manziel, who reportedly entered rehab after the season, but that's no longer Hoyer's concern. Now, Hoyer turns to Houston, where one of the contract requirements may be that he changes his name to Ryan. (The Ryans Mallet and Fitzgerald took the majority of snaps in 2014.) After cratering out at 2-14 in 2013, the Texans rebounded to become one of the many 9-7 playoff wannabes in the AFC in 2014, and a stable quarterback situation could help the team build on that trajectory.
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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter.
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