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The Old vs. the New: Hoyer or Manziel?

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By Ellen Chlumecky

After a two-day debate on which quarterback for the Browns would be playing on Sunday, coach Mike Pettine finally made his decision today. Pettine announced that Brian Hoyer will continue his 13th straight game as the quarterback against the Indianapolis Colts. While the decision was tough, it seems like the majority of Browns’ fans still aren’t pleased. Who would think that there would be so much controversy over who the starting quarterback would be for the Cleveland Browns?

Cleveland Browns fans, that’s who. As soon as Manziel was drafted by the Cleveland Browns in the 2014 NFL Draft. So many fans thought Manziel was going to be used immediately when he joined the team. The majority of Browns’ fans worshiped the ground Manziel walked on and were highly upset when Pettine picked Hoyer over Manziel for this Sunday.

Everyone seemed to have their own opinion. Some people agree and some people think that Pettine made a huge mistake. Sports writer Pat McManamon said that the Browns are making the logical move by choosing Hoyer over Manziel. He believes that this is just a chance for Hoyer to show Pettine he made the right decision. While write Field Yates, another ESPN writer, believes that the Browns would have been better off picking Manziel to start over Hoyer.

While Pettine has explained his reasoning, he is receiving the heat for this decision from all the Manziel fans out there. However at the end of the day, Pettine has expressed on several occasions that as a rookie, Manziel still is quite unpredictable. While they are still monitoring his progress, he is still a question mark in whether or not he’ll start. Throwing a rookie in a playoff push would give any intelligent coach hesitance. However, still contrary to the coach’s opinion, Manziel fans are pushing for him relentlessly.

Since the Browns are finally in a playoff push, fans are freaking out. While Manziel may seem like the all star, Hoyer is a veteran who has been part of their success and shown their ability to bounce back. Pettine was not swayed by the fans’ complaints. Pettine knows that Manziel has the talent but it is not where it needs to be right now. While the Browns’ fans are going to complain till the cows come home about every move not involving Manziel, Pettine is going to stand firm with his decision on Hoyer. It shouldn’t make or break the team because they do not have a quarterback-centric offense. But at the end of the day when it comes to a decision about Manziel, everything has to be a big production.

 

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Cleveland’s Quarterback Dilemma

By Savannah Malnar

Johnny “Money” Manziel may have been the most hyped rookie coming to play in the NFL this season. The college star was drafted by the Cleveland Browns, and immediately there was speculation as to if he would start over last year’s starter Brian Hoyer. Despite the rumors, Manziel only saw the field once (on a trick play to catch a pass from Hoyer) until last Sunday. The Browns were down 20-3 to the Buffalo Bills, and Cleveland coach Mike Pettine had enough of Hoyer and gave Manziel the field with about 12 minutes left in the game. Manziel promptly drove the Browns down the field and ran in a 10-yard, marking the first rushing touchdown for Cleveland in four years.

The Browns still ended up falling to the Bills 26-10, but that didn’t stop the rush of people again calling for Manziel to start for the remainder of the year. Cleveland fans seemed to all be on the same side; the team should no longer be Hoyer’s.

Local and national media humanized the event a little more, highlighting Hoyer’s disappointment in being pulled. Hoyer spoke with reporters post-game, and the most common quote in each media account of the event is, “So I think you guys know from before, I’m never going to just hang my head and feel sorry for myself. We have four games left and whatever coach decides to do, I’ll be here to support this team and obviously I feel like this is my team and this is my job so we’ll see what happens moving forward.” Hoyer still believes the starting position should be his, especially after the strong start the team showcased early in the season.

One Browns beat writer, Mary Kay Cabot, focused on Manziel instead. Her article discussed his gratitude for the chance to play and also his humility and acknowledgement that he couldn’t have performed as well without the veterans on the Browns offense. Manziel felt lucky that his one fumble got overturned as an incomplete pass despite his opinion that his arm had not moved forward yet.

Cabot and most other sports writers seem to be under the same impression: Manziel is going to get his chance to start soon, if not in Week 14.

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Cleveland Rocks Again

By Matt Rogers

It’s a Sunday in November, and the Cleveland Browns are relevant in the NFL playoff picture. At 5-3, this marks the best first half of the season the Browns have had since 2007, when the team finished with their last winning record: 10-6. Thus, making it almost impossible for the national media to ignore the feat. The Browns have earned plenty of mentions on the national networks, lately, What makes this appealing to Browns’ fans is that it’s not because of their futility or for purpose of being the butt of every joke.

Also worthy of mention regarding sports teams in Cleveland is the new-look Cleveland Cavaliers. The Cavaliers had what most will agree to be the best offseason of any NBA team this past summer, when LeBron James released an essay in Sports Illustrated telling Cleveland he was “Coming Home”, after spurning the city and team just four years earlier in gut-wrenching fashion with “The Decision”. It also did not hurt that Kevin Love, who some believe is the NBA’s best Power forward, was added via a trade with the Minnesota Timberwolves for rookie number one pick, Andrew Wiggins, and former number one pick, Anthony Bennett.

After losing their first game, in what was a highly covered game because it was the first game of LeBron James’ homecoming season, the Cavaliers won their second game. Both of these games were televised on national networks, after only having a handful of nationally televised games over the last four years without LeBron.

It is sure to be a year to remember in Cleveland because of the buzz that these two teams are creating. The buzz will only get louder, and louder, and louder as the season goes on because of the excitement that being relevant within the NFL and NBA brings. Cleveland fans are usually regarded as some of the most passionate fans in the NFL, NBA, and MLB. There may be times that the Cleveland fans are not the most loyal, but every city has fans that are guilty of the same. Anyone would be hard pressed to find a city more deserving of a winner, after waiting 50 years, and counting, between championships. This includes losing two World Series in 1995 and 1997, and suffering through what was LeBron’s first ‘Decision’. It is about time that Cleveland teams give their fans something to consistently cheer about rather than showing glimpses of a breakthrough only to have any hope ripped away with another losing season.

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Tough Love From Media in Cleveland

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By Kate Roth

The Cleveland Browns improved their record to 3-2 this past Sunday with a dominating 31-10 victory over their rival Pittsburgh Steelers. Through his performance, quarterback Brian Hoyer, showed us once again that he is capable of leading an NFL team and is deserving of the starting spot over fan favorite Johnny Manziel. For once, everything seems to be clicking for the Browns considering they have a quarterback they can trust, their star running back in Ben Tate has just emerged off the injured and is performing well and their schedule over the next few weeks seems to be playing out in their favor. This is something that Browns fans have been looking forward to for years and now that everything seems to be falling into place, I’m not sure the media knows how to handle it.

Following the win on Sunday I was fully expecting this week to be filled with local (Cleveland) sports articles regarding the success of the Browns, and the potential to really make a statement in the up and coming weeks. The last thing I was expecting to see is negative comments about the team and especially not the “Hometown Hero” Brian Hoyer.

Unfortunately the media caught me off guard and this is exactly what I ended up reading. Stories claiming that Hoyer is considering not signing a contract extension with the Browns and instead looking for the next big contract, comments that Hoyer later denied. Other articles discussed how the injuries to center Alex Mack and defensive lineman Armonty Bryant could be very costly to the Browns, preventing them from winning the games coming up on their schedule.

There was even an article that criticized Hoyer for wanting to turn current Dallas Cowboys fan and Cleveland Cavaliers superstar LeBron James into a Browns fan, claiming that Hoyer needed to stay focused on his job as the quarterback of the Browns and not worry about who LeBron is cheering for.

It’s almost as if the Cleveland media is so used to watching the Browns lose that they’re not quite sure how to react to the success of the team.

Instead of picking out anything negative they could find about the team they needed to be applauding them for the great performance they put up over the weekend and throughout the season thus far. After a 31-10 smack down on your rival there should be plenty of positive things to talk about.

Even though it is still very early in the season and may be too early to tell how the team will perform throughout the year, things are still looking up in Cleveland and fans are really starting to believe and get behind this team. Now it’s the media’s turn to jump on board and enjoy the ride for as long as it may last and create positive news stories instead of negative.

It’s time to turn this Factory of Sadness around and an easy way to start this is through the media.

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