Cleveland Browns - Fantasy News

Is Kevin Hogan Worth a Fantasy Football Pickup?

by Adam Markowitz

10/11/17

NFL

Cleveland Browns

Kevin Hogan

The Cleveland Browns have another new quarterback.

Tim Couch. Ty Detmer. Doug Pederson. Spergon Wynn. Kelly Holcomb. Jeff Garcia. Luke McCown. Trent Dilfer. Charlie Frye. Derek Anderson. Brady Quinn. Ken Dorsey. Bruce Gradkowski. Colt McCoy. Jake Delhomme. Seneca Wallace. Brandon Weeden. Thad Lewis. Jason Campbell. Brian Hoyer. Johnny Manziel. Josh McCown. Connor Shaw. Austin Davis. Robert Griffin III. Cody Kessler. DeShone Kizer.

And now Kevin Hogan.

That's the list of players who have started under center for the Browns since their revival in 1999. No team should have to go through 28 starting quarterbacks in less than two decades.

Though all 28 of these are completely different passers, at least the first 27 have shared the same thing in common: Zero fantasy football relevance.

The best year for any of these pivots came in 2007 when Anderson made the Pro Bowl. He was great that season, throwing for 3,787 yards and 29 touchdowns to average 15.91 Dober Fantasy Points per game.

Neither before that nor since then did any starting quarterback for Cleveland making more than three starts average even a dozen DFP per game.

The million-dollar question: Can Hogan change all of that?

In fairness to the Stanford product, he hasn't been a complete abomination in relief of Kizer this season. He has completed 62.5 percent of his 64 throws and has a 3-to-4 touchdown-to-interception ratio. He's shown that he can move around in the pocket a little bit with 140 career rushing yards in effectively a total of 2.5 games of actual on-field time.

Last week against the Jets, Hogan went 16-of-19 for 194 yards and two scores. His 12.76 DFP was excellent by any standards for a half of football, and he darn near led Cleveland back from a game that looked lost.

That said, we can't expect Hogan to ultimately come out firing in his first career start. We have to remember that he threw for 300 yards just three times in his 50 games at Stanford. David Shaw generally asked Hogan to be a game manager. Though there were a few outbursts (329 yards and five touchdowns against Cal as a sophomore and 216 yards and four scores against Army as a junior), Hogan for the most part was asked to do nothing more than turn around and hand the ball off to Christian McCaffrey and Stepfan Taylor.

The good news is that we wouldn't need Hogan to be a superstar in order to exceed his Projected Fantasy Points total of 9.5. The mass majority of quarterbacks, even if on accident, on any given Sunday get to 10 DFP. Hogan would only need to throw for 150 yards and a touchdown to get there.

The even better news is that the Houston Texans, the team Cleveland is preparing to face on Sunday, are just starting life without J.J. Watt and Whitney Mercilus. The Texans are vulnerable at this point, as demonstrated by the fact that they just let Alex Smith and the Chiefs put 42 points on the board against them. This isn't the same defense without Watt, but not having Mercilus as well really puts Jadeveon Clowney on an island. If the Browns can get him blocked, Hogan will have the ability to do what he does best: Sit in the pocket and make simple throws.

Even though Hue Jackson could be in his last few weeks coaching the Browns, he's no dummy when it comes to offense. This was a move that had to be made. That said, he isn't going to put Hogan in a position in which he's destined to fail. Though we doubt Cleveland actually beats the Texans on Sunday, it wouldn't be shocking to see Hogan have a respectable game.

If not, it's anyone's guess when quarterback No. 29 will hit the field.