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In last night’s game against the Bills, the Cleveland Browns fell victim to injuries, watching Brian Hoyer go down with a knee injury after a terribly awkward slide attempt.

Alex Flanagan reported that the Browns fear Hoyer tore ligaments in his knee, and Adam Schefter updated us with fears that Hoyer tore his ACL.

If those initial reports are correct, Brian Hoyer could miss the rest of the 2013 season, leaving the door open for Brandon Weeden to retake control of the Browns’ quarterback position. If that happens, he needs to be owned in two-quarterback leagues. Let’s take a look at why you should have hope.







Reasons for Hope

Weeden played in two games before leaving in Week 2 with a thumb injury. In those games, he completed 47 of his 86 passes, throwing one touchdown and three interceptions. But let’s be frank: those are not good numbers. Those are the numbers that give Weeden the negative reputation he has both in Cleveland and the larger fantasy community.

But in his favor, Weeden played those two games without wide receiver Josh Gordon and without the new-found hope the entire Browns’ organization has discovered. This Cleveland team has gotten a taste of winning, and they’ve defeated three straight opponents. There is reason to hope the addition of Josh Gordon and the new locker room atmosphere will improve Weeden’s numbers.

Thursday night against the Bills, Brandon Weeden came in to replace Brian Hoyer, and he threw for 13 of 24, for 197 yards, with one touchdown and no interceptions — good for 11 points in most fantasy leagues. With a week to practice as the starter, expect Weeden to improve on those numbers next week against Detroit.



Why You Shouldn’t Expect to Start Weeden Immediately

None of this should be taken to mean that you’ll be starting Brandon Weeden next week. Instead, you should pick him up as a backup and possible bye-week fill-in down the road — particularly look at Week 7 at Green Bay and Week 13 versus Jacksonville, two bad passing defenses.

You should certainly be concerned with Weeden’s lack of mobility — he has never rushed for more than 25 yards in a game, and he looks stiff in the pocket. You should also be concerned with the lack of accuracy Weeden showed as a fill-in against the Bills on Thursday, although he’ll improve that with a full week of practice. (Weeden completed 63% of his passes in the final 5 weeks of 2012, so he’s shown that he’s capable of throwing with better accuracy.)



What to Expect Going Forward

Like Berger wrote back in August, “In 2-QB leagues Brandon Weeden is a steal. … It may be a rough first two weeks until Gordon returns from suspension, but Weeden is actually going to turn a lot of heads in the AFC North. Weeden will not jump into the elite class of QBs probably ever, but he should be a consistent fantasy backup or low end #2 QB value play. 23rd among quarterbacks is about right.”

I’ll echo that today: I expect Weeden to rank around QB23-25 most weeks if he starts at quarterback for the rest of the season. He’ll have occasional interceptions that will limit his value, and he won’t ever put up significant rushing points; but Weeden has enough talent and enough weapons around him to put up good passing numbers, particularly in Weeks 7 and 13.

If you’re in a two-quarterback league, you should target Brandon Weeden as a waiver wire addition.