The Post-Hoyer Browns

This past game, the Browns decided to start Johnny Manziel and bench Brian Hoyer. Hoyer has been struggling the past few weeks after playing above what he's probably capable of consistently playing. This will mark the 21st starting quarterback for the Browns since the Browns came back to Cleveland in 1999. Here's the full list in case you wanted to know:

1. Tim Couch

2. Ty Detmer

3. Doug Pederson

4. Spergon Wynn

5. Kelly Holcomb

6. Jeff Garcia

7. Luke McCown

8. Trent Dilfer

9. Charlie Frye

10. Derek Anderson

11. Brady Quinn

12. Ken Dorsey

13. Bruce Gradkowski

14. Colt McCoy

15. Jake Delhomme

16. Seneca Wallace

17. Brandon Weeden

18. Thad Lewis

19. Jason Campbell

20. Brian Hoyer

21. Johnny Manziel

The bad news is that next year, we'll need to make room for #22. Maybe LeBron will come in as #23. 

This past game against the Bengals was a bad game. It all doesn't go on Manziel's shoulders. Most of it was bad play on the field. Between receivers dropping balls and linemen getting pushed around, it would've been a tough day for almost anyone. Some of it was injuries. Before the game, Dansby, Williams, and Barnidge were all out and during the game, Gilbert and Haden left. Some of it was the Bengals wanting to pound on Johnny Manziel. See all the money signs made? A lot of it was Johnny Manziel.  

I've already written a piece on Johnny Manziel and how he's not a great NFL quarterback. He wasn't even a great college quarterback. So instead of re-hashing all that, I'll just comment on what I saw today.


Running

This is one of the biggest misnomers in the NFL: running QB's don't work. You can make the argument that they will in the future, but right now they don't. What is translating to the NFL from college are quarterbacks who can also run. Andrew Luck, Russell Wilson, and Aaron Rodgers are your examples. What isn't translating? Running quarterbacks who sometimes choose to throw. Vince Young, Michael Vick, RG3, Tim Tebow, Colin Kaepernick, and Cam Newton. And now Johnny Manziel.

As Luck and Wilson show, you have to be able to throw the ball first. Manziel looks down his first read and then looks to scramble, sometimes to throw it again but often just to run. As he found out today, D-linemen and LB's are fast. This isn't college, despite him playing in the SEC. Michael Sam was the SEC defensive player of the year. He can't even get tryouts with NFL teams now. He is fairly mobile, but he's too small and too slow to pull off the plays he did in college. The NFL game is simply faster.

Improvisation

This is the most overrated aspect of Manziel from his A&M days. In college, when a play broke down (which he looked to have happen because then he could run) he almost always looked to run. When he did choose to improvise, he had two first-round NFL linemen to protect him in Jake Matthews and Luke Joeckel. He also had arguably the best WR in college football in Mike Evans.

What I saw from his improvisation skills was that the play would break down, his linemen would continue to give him some time, and he would toss it up, usually to Mike Evans who could just go up and get it over shorter, less athletic corners and linebackers. He has Josh Gordon who's a very good receiver, but he can't do that in the NFL. Even Megatron doesn't get all those catches despite being nearly a foot taller than whoever guards him. Others around Manziel made him look better than he was in terms of creating on the fly.

Accuracy Problems

This was very evident against the Bengals. Manziel is just not an accurate quarterback. Even when throwing to Josh Gordon, a huge target, he threw it too high or behind him. He had a critical throw that he put behind Andrew Hawkins. He was lucky that the throw he put behind Travis Benjamin that got picked off ended up coming back due to an off-sides penalty on the Bengals defense.

Part of the reason his accuracy is low is his arm strength. It's not so much an issue in the NFC South, but in the AFC North, it gets really cold. You need a strong arm in divisions like this. Take a look at all the QB's in the two coldest divisions, the AFC and NFC North: Big Ben, Joe Flacco, Jay Cutler, Aaron Rodgers, Matthew Stafford. You need a big arm to cut through that coldness. Manziel doesn't have it. Neither does Dalton.

Bad Judgement

This is the biggest deal-breaker for me. Same can be said for Jameis Winston. Manziel just shows bad judgement, on and off the field. He did in high school, he did in college, and he's doing it now in the NFL. Sorry. That's a trend to me, and I don't want my starting QB to have a trend of bad decisions. From the off-field antics and trouble with the law to the on-field decisions he makes. He threw a pass to Travis Benjamin that got picked off that even average quarterbacks don't dare to throw. He didn't make second, third, and fourth reads in college and he doesn't now.


I hope that I'm wrong about Manziel, I really do. I'm tired of perpetually looking for our franchise quarterback. It's the most important position in football which means if I only have one hard-working, grinding, intelligent, good decision-making player on my team, it has to be at QB. Look at which QB's are in the playoffs in the AFC as of right now: Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Andrew Luck, Andy Dalton who's a good regular-season QB, Big Ben, Joe Flacco, and Phillip Rivers is the first one out. The best seven quarterbacks are in the playoffs or are first out. This is the most important in football so I need my franchise QB to be better than what Johnny Manziel has shown. Hopefully we can find that guy by next season. 

Tips For You

This blog now is mainly about my rants for Cleveland sports teams and the leagues they play in. However, when I started, I actually addressed other topics. I think I'll try to get back to doing that more often. And what better way then to start out with a controversial issue: tipping.

One of the many controversial issues out there is that of tipping. Should you always tip 15%? Should you ever go below that number? Is tipping directly related to the service you get? What about takeout? Lots of good questions. My purpose isn't to sway you either way with my opinion, but to provide some much-needed information regarding tips. I see a lot of information that isn't entirely correct out there, especially Facebook. I want to help set the record straight.

I've worked in payroll now for seven years and accounting for three. I've worked on different sides of payroll for restaurants. They are one of the more complex industries to do payroll for. There are lots of different rates, overtime, and bonuses. Some are salaried, some are not. Most work with tips, which makes things even more complicated.

In payroll, there is a concept called 'in and out' when it comes to certain items, tips being one of them. Basically, a deduction that falls into this category is something that you receive, are taxed on, and then has been or gets immediately paid out. Items like this would include things like tips, PUCC (personal use of the company car), and advances. In the case of PUCC, you're allowed to use the company car for personal use. You don't receive any cash or anything for it, but there is a monetary value assigned to you using the company car. Let's say it's $200. If you made $300, then you paycheck would look like this:


$300 wages
$200 PUCC


You would get taxed on $500, which for FICA would be $38.25. It would only be $22.95 if you didn't have PUCC.

Tips work the same way. Let's say you made $20 in wages and $500 in tips. Rather than the $1,53 you would pay in taxes on the $20, tips are considered income. Your tax bill for just FICA would be $39.78. Since this is more than the $20 received on the check, you would get a zero net check and your employer would probably withhold the $19.78 out of your tips.

That concept is fairly well-known, but this next one is not. It's called tips to minimum. The federal minimum wage for workers is currently $7.25. The tipped minimum wage is $2.13 but still has to equal the $7.25 per hour when tips are added in. Bottom line, tipped employees should still be making at least $7.25 an hour.

I had an argument with someone in a class in college about this once. She was a server, and the professor had been a server as well. It was in a sociology class. When she brought up the fact that some nights she might only make $3/hour, I told her that was illegal. Both the student and professor argued with me, but they were wrong.

I don't want to do a lot of math here, so let's take an easy example. Let's say you were paid $3/hour as a tipped wage and the state minimum wage is $10/hour. Since the state is higher than the federal, the state minimum is used. Let's say you work 10 hours earning $30 in wages and you only make $170 in tips.

First, because you worked 30 hours, the lowest you can get paid is $300 according to the state minimum wage laws.You only made $30 in wages and $170 in tips totaling $200.

Where does the other $100 come from? Your employer. They are legally obligated to pay you that extra $100. Does it always happen? No, because a lot of tipped employees don't know this. They're letting their employer take advantage of them which isn't right.

No matter how much your hourly wage is, if you're a tipped employee, your hourly wage should work out to be at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25.

There's also a concept called a FICA tip credit that the employer receives on his business tax return. Basically they get a tax credit on tips reported above $5.15 minus wages.

It's very confusing, which is why a lot of restaurants don't actually use this credit. Sip this section if you absolutely hate math. Using our latest example, this is how it would work out:


$170 in tips
$130 in wages
Had the employee been paid $5.15 an hour, they would have been $154.50

$154.50 - $130 = $24.50 difference in wages paid and wages paid out at $5.15

$170 - $24.50 = $145.50 eligible tips for the credit

$145.50 x 7.65% = $11.13 credit for employer


In this case, on his business tax return, the employer would be eligible for a credit worth $11.13. This is just one employee who made a meager $170 in tips. This credit can get very large. It's also more beneficial to the employer if employees get more tips. While they would pay more in FICA taxes up front for payroll, they would get a bigger credit on their tax return.

Look at this recent example, and instead of $170 in tips, make that $570 in tips.

$154.50 - $30 = $124.50 difference in wages paid out and wages paid out at $5.15 (in this case, the employee made enough in tips to not have to pay out that extra $100)

$570 - $124.50 = $445.50 eligible tips for the credit

$445.50 x 7.65% = $34.08 credit for employer


Essentially the employer is recouping the FICA taxes paid out at the time of payroll. While having paid an extra $22.95 in FICA taxes (7.65% of the difference between $600 and $300), he gets an extra $22.95 credit while not having to pay the extra $100 in wages. Your tipping would save the employer an extra $100.

So what's the point of all this? Employers benefit greatly from tips. It allows them to take a large credit on their tax return while not having to pay out most of an employees wage since tips will do that. I don't want to bore you with my own personal opinion on tipping, but when servers say they only make $2.13 an hour, it's simply not true.

Browns Controversy

From the time the Browns drafted Johnny Manziel in the first round, they had a QB controversy. It was self-inflicted. The Browns were apparently unsure about Brian Hoyer being their franchise guy, so they picked up Manziel to add some competition.

I'm not upset that the Browns drafted a QB. I think it was smart. Two things though...they shouldn't have drafted him in the first round, and they shouldn't have taken Johnny Manziel. I previously wrote an article about Manziel and what I think about him as a QB, but suffice it to say I'm not happy we took him. He was overrated in college and is even more so in the NFL. He's a small guy who likes to run. It doesn't bode well for big guys who like to run, much less smaller guys. Run-first QB's don't do well at the NFL level. His QB gradually goes down during the game, meaning in the 4th quarter when you need him most, he's playing at his worst. Part of this is that he gets banged up during the game because he runs. He isn't good with progressions. At A&M, he would stare down his first route and usually not look to his second, third, or fourth. He had NFL O-linemen and arguably the best college receiver in Mike Evans. Sometimes he would just throw it up for Evans to go get it. His mechanics need a lot of work and his worst games were against the teams that had actual NFL talent. He had a losing record against them.

But everyone remembers his heisman trophy and the fact that he beat Alabama once. "He's a winner." So was Tim Tebow for a few games. How'd that turn out? He's just not cut out to be an NFL quarterback. Since he hasn't had more than 10 passing attempts in his NFL career, that's his resume up to this point.

Talent at the college level doesn't always translate to the next level. Look at these heisman winners since just 2000. Chris Weinke (QB), Eric Crouch (QB), Jason White (QB), Matt Leinart (QB), Troy Smith (QB), Tim Tebow (QB), Mark Ingram (RB), Cam Newton (QB) has hit his ceiling, RG3 (QB) who we now know as a bust. Johnny Manziel is the next person on that list. That's 10 busts who were heisman winners just this century, of a possible 13! Talent in college doesn't always equal great NFL player.

Hoyer's resume isn't extremely great, either. He's floated around a few teams before finally landing here in his hometown. As a starter, he is 10-5. That's the best record the Browns have had in a long time. He's only throwing 56% of his passes to sub-par receivers. His QB rating isn't great. He came through with a clutch performance against the Titans, and he's good in the clutch.

All year I've been a Brian Hoyer guy. This past week, due to bad performances, the Browns benched Hoyer and went with Manziel for a little while. Manziel ran for a touchdown and nearly gave the Bills one as well. So with that having been done, many people thought that Mike Pettine would name Manziel the starter this week against the Colts. Hoyer was named instead. I think Manziel will play, just not start.

As you can guess, many Manziel-maniacs aren't too happy. "We need to see what Johnny has." The Browns have really vamped up their QB controversy. Sticking with Hoyer will be interesting. I don't know how much his confidence has been shaken and how much he'll be looking over his shoulder after every incomplete pass. This has been Hoyer's season and he's done most of it without Gordon and Cameron, and now Mack and Austin. This would be difficult for any QB. With Gordon back, he'll have at least one guy to throw to.

Going with Manziel would essentially be telling Hoyer that "you're not our guy and you won't be getting the new contract that you want from us."It would make Manziel our franchise QB. There's a scary thought...

With Manziel, you'd get some good plays and a lot of bad ones. I actually think going with Johnny would give Hoyer playing time because he will inevitably get hurt. He'd probably win his first few games, then once defensive coordinators figured out how to game plan him, his numbers would go down and he'd start losing...a lot.

Judging from this year, I'm not sure as that Hoyer is a franchise QB as I was to begin the year. He's had his chance, and he's gone 7-5 in arguably the NFL's toughest division. That's not bad, but is it enough to warrant a big contract? Basically I need my QB to make good decisions on and off the field. Manziel has been involved with altercations going back to his college days. He skipped out on the Manning camp. He's involved in late night hotel incidents. I don't care what you do in Vegas as long as you don't come up in the news all the time. "Well Manziel is a higher-profile guy so of course he'll be in the news more." Yes, but he's in the news for all the wrong reasons. I didn't want him for the same reasons I don't want Jameis Winston, and I was high on him the past two years. Bad judgment. Too many little decisions that aren't good.

I'd like to see Hoyer finish out the season. If he does well, give him a contract extension and get rid of Johnny football. If he doesn't, then he might not be our franchise QB and let's get someone in who can be. Draft three QB's if necessary. I would still like to get rid of Johnny football. And hey, if Manziel does play and proves to be a great NFL QB, then I'll be happy because the Browns will be winning, but history tells us that it's probably not going to happen. I can understand fans wanting to pull the plug on Hoyer, but let him finish it out first to see if he can be the guy or not. If not, let's move on.