CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The Cleveland Browns have again gotten themselves into a sticky situation.
The result of the last month of the season, which has seen the Browns' record dip from 6-3 and 7-4 to a stumbling 7-8 after a 17-13 loss to the Carolina Panthers, is this: The Browns may have less clarity at the most important position on the team than they did before the season started.
Fifteen games ago, the Browns at least had Brian Hoyer starting the season coming off two wins in two full games in 2013.
Now they have Hoyer, who knows that the team really did not want him for the long run, and Johnny Manziel, who in his six quarters of play simply has not looked NFL-ready.
Do the Browns really believe that Manziel is the guy for '15 based on what they’ve seen?
If Manziel played that way in games, there’s little doubt that it's the way it went in practice. Manziel spent 14 games awaiting a chance, then looked like he just picked up the playbook that Monday.
Do the Browns revisit Hoyer and sign him before he becomes a free agent and spend many dollars to do so after they replaced him in 2014? Is it worth re-signing a guy they did not even commit to for 16 games?
Hoyer has struggled the past few games he has started as he's tried to win three games at once -- against himself, the looming presence of the phenom first-round pick and the other team.
How Hoyer has responded to the presence of Manziel will fairly be a factor in his evaluation. But to sell the idea that Manziel was more prepared to win was selling snake oil.
If Manziel played like he did with an entire training camp and preseason to prepare, well then, there’s trouble.
Barring a miraculous transformation, the ever-present possibility of a struggling Manziel and 5-11 record loom for next season.
It’s just a ridiculous mess, with visions of an offseason of adding Jake Delhomme and Seneca Wallace dancing in folks’ memory banks.
Manziel had one very nice throw in the loss to the Panthers, a stand-in-the-pocket, 28-yard completion to Andrew Hawkins on third down. Very nice play.
Other than that, he threw seven times, completed two passes and gained 4 yards. (The other first-round pick, Justin Gilbert, mainly watched as fourth-round pick Pierre Desir got the bulk of the playing time with Joe Haden out.)
The options for 2015 are not easy. Oregon QB Marcus Mariota probably will be drafted first, which means the Browns would have to give up all those first-round draft choices they have to get him -- assuming the team drafting first doesn’t want him. Only in Cleveland do folks talk of a near impossibility like Mariota as if it's a simple matter. Or, do the Browns want to bring Jameis Winston's off-the-field issues to the team?
The free agents? Hoyer is among them. Would Mark Sanchez be a step forward? Jake Locker? Blaine Gabbert? Do the Browns bring in a Matt Moore to back up Manziel and hope? Do they ponder Hoyer? And would Hoyer even re-sign with Cleveland?
There are so many questions that have grown the past few weeks, questions that should not be present after a 7-4 start. That kind of early-season play should have led to clarity.
But with the Cleveland Browns, there seems to be one annual tradition no matter who is in charge or involved: The season ends with uncertainty about next season’s quarterback.
It hasn’t gone on long.
Just the past 15 years.
