Brian Hoyer has been exceeding my expectations this year by avoiding mistakes and making a few big plays. Most importantly, he's been a positive force en route to two 4th quarter comebacks and a .500 record. When I've watched the film I've seen a quarterback who has been efficient but who hasn't wowed me. So I decided to dive into the stats to see if my evaluation matched the box scores.

The Overall Stat: ANY/A - 7.66

I've previously written about the shortcomings of Passer Rating. In its place, Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt should be the new "one number" stat for QBs. It eliminates many of the logical problems with Passer Rating, and it functions as a great overall evaluation of QB performance.

ANY/A can be thought of as yards per passing attempt adjusted for sacks, as well as awarding bonuses for TDs and penalties for INTs. It basically judges every pass play for QBs.

Compare to:

Phillip Rivers - 8.99

Peyton Manning - 8.48

Russel Wilson - 7.52

Jay Cutler - 5.41

Colt McCoy (career) - 4.71

So far, Hoyer is blowing my expectations away with this stat. He's in the top-5 in the league right now, and he's up almost two and a half yards from last year. Simply incredible.

A Few Key Components of ANY/A (in one form or another):

Sack% - 3.6%

Brian Hoyer has only been sacked on 3.6% of passing plays this year. He is doing a great job of avoiding sacks, and our line is doing a great job of keeping him clean.

Compare to:

Robert Griffin - 9.1%

Matt Stafford - 8.7%

Russell Wilson - 7.5%

Peyton Manning - 2.5%

Drew Brees - 1.8%





INT% - 0.8%

Speaking of avoiding mistakes, Hoyer has thrown INTs on less than 1% of his passes this year. Again, simply incredible.

Compare to:

Jay Cutler - 3.1%

Drew brees - 2.8%

Peyton Manning - 1.9%

Russell Wilson - 0.9%

Cam Newton - 0.8%

Aaron Rodgers - 0.7%





TD% - 4.5%

Here's where I think Hoyer could stand to improve the most. He can avoid mistakes, he can lead the team to yardage. Now, can he make plays and score touchdowns more consistently?

Compare to:

Aaron Rodgers - 8.2%

Peyton Manning - 7.6%

Phillip Rivers - 7.3%

Russell Wilson - 7.2%

Joe Flacco - 3.7%

Tom Brady - 3.5%

Accounting For Volume

Yardage and attempts - 1008 Yards on 132 Attempts (252 yards/game)

The Browns may be able to become a more effective offense simply by relying on Hoyer to throw more often. He's 23rd in the league in passing attempts, despite the Browns being in the top 10 in plays per game. In other words, we run a lot of plays and we like to run the ball.

Hoyer is on pace for a 4000 yard season, but he's almost exactly average in terms of yards per game, t-15th with Tony Romo.

Compare to:

Andrew Luck - 323.4 y/g

Peyton Manning - 323.3 y/g

Phillip Rivers - 288.6 y/g

Joe Flacco - 258.0 y/g

Russell Wilson - 213.0 y/g

Passer Usage% - 53.08%

I'll be honest with you all, I just made this stat up today. I did it because there isn't a great measure of how often a team's quarterback is called upon to throw the football. We've all witnessed (or participated in) arguments about Russell Wilson's job being easier than Peyton Manning's, but we haven't had a number to quantify how often a QB is asked to throw. Now we kind of have one.

Passer Usage % is:

QB passing attempts / (team rushing attempts + team passing attempts) x 100

Brian Hoyer throws a pass 53.08% of the time that the Cleveland Browns run an offensive play. That isn't as often as the classic "best" QBs, but it isn't as low as two other notable QBs this year.

Compare to:

Drew Brees - 62.82%

Matt Ryan - 62.04%,

Peyton Manning - 61.48%

Aaron Rodgers - 57.79%

Russel Wilson - 47.66%

Andy Dalton - 45.57%

So, Browns fans, how is Hoyer doing? Does he fit the "game manager" mold, or is he a franchise player? Should we extend him, or should we think about his backup? I seem to remember drafting a quarterback in April....