When Mark Sanchez met the press at Broncos headquarters (just one week after Peyton Manning retired), he was announced as the newest quarterback of the Denver Broncos – not the newest starting quarterback of the Denver Broncos.
General manager John Elway made it clear that Sanchez would compete for the job, but called the move the first step in a “process.”
In the nearly six weeks that have followed, Denver has pursued a trade for 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, numerous draft experts have predicted they will select a quarterback in the first round of next week’s NFL Draft, and the team has left the door open for negotiations with other street free agents like Ryan Fitzpatrick.
Elway can officially add Brian Hoyer, who started nine games for Houston last season, as one of those street free agents after the seven-year veteran was released by the Texans over the weekend.
Hoyer was 5-4 as a starter during the regular season in 2015, missing several starts due to multiple concussions and an ill-managed QB competition with Ryan Mallett. He sealed his fate in the playoffs, though, throwing for just 136 yards and four interceptions in a blowout loss to Kansas City.
That’s quarterback Mike Luper believes the Broncos would get if John Elway is crazy enough to bring Hoyer in as part of this “process.”
“I don’t want him here,” Luper – aka Sports Guy Mike – said on his radio show Monday. “You guys were complaining about Mark Sanchez throwing interceptions?”
One of the knocks on Sanchez is his lifetime 86:84 touchdown-to-interceptions ratio. Hoyer’s ratio is better, but at 38:26, it’s by no means impressive.
Luper doesn’t even care that Hoyer was a starting quarterback for a playoff team last year while Sanchez played a backup role for the 7-9 Eagles. “I’ll take Sanchez every day and twice on Sunday,” he said vehemently.
His co-host, former Broncos and Bears running back Chris Brewer uses an automotive analogy to describe the current Broncos quarterback situation:
“When you’re driving a ‘hoopty,’ every car on the road looks good. We have Mark Sanchez, and even we don’t want Brian Hoyer.”
That isn’t to say that Brewer doesn’t have at least some respect for Sanchez. Maybe Sanchez didn’t quite live up to Brewer’s expectation that he could be “the next Joe Namath,” but Brewer likes Sanchez’s work ethic and humility.
Luper isn’t wholly convinced that Elway’s “process” doesn’t include moving Sanchez in another trade. He’s hearing talk – although nothing he’d attach a name to – that the Broncos might want to include Sanchez in a deal with another team in need of a backup.
If that’s the plan, it explains all the more why Sanchez had little fanfare for his introductory press conference and has flown mostly under the radar since.
The “process” is still playing out, but Luper and Brewer are confident in one thing: Brian Hoyer should not be a part of it.
Listen to all that, plus an idea for a new rule the NFL should enact to protect promising young quarterbacks from being ruined by the Cleveland Browns, in the podcast below…
https://soundcloud.com/milehighsports/4-18-16-hoyer-an-option-in-denver-sports-guy-mike-brewer-debate
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