If you are looking for another game to watch this coming Sunday that is somewhat connected to the Pittsburgh Steelers you can watch the Arizona Cardinals season finale against the San Francisco 49ers.
Why you ask? Well, it was announced on Wednesday that Brian Hoyer, who was with the Steelers a few weeks while both Ben Roethlisberger and Byron Leftwich were sidelined with injures, will start at quarterback for the Cardinals.
Hoyer played nearly all of the second half last week in the Cardinals loss to the Chicago Bears and completed 11 of 19 passes for 105 yards with one interception and no touchdowns. He also played without getting any work with the offense in practice according to several reports. This week he will get all of the first team reps with the offense and this might be the final chance he gets to prove that he can play in the league.
“This is an opportunity I have waited a long time for,” Hoyer said Wednesday. “I didn’t think it’d come with the Arizona Cardinals this year. But I am happy it did. When you get an opportunity like this you just have to prepare the best you can and make the most of it.”
The Steelers will head into their offseason following their game Sunday against the Cleveland Browns with question marks at their backup quarterback position as both Leftwich and Charlie Batch will both be unrestricted free agents once again. When Roethlisberger went down the Steelers only won one of the three games he missed with Batch getting the lone win in the closing seconds against the Baltimore Ravens in Week 13. That was the last game that the Steelers have won by the way.
The Steelers had a chance to keep Hoyer and release Leftwich once he was healthy, but chose not to. Should Hoyer play well against the 49ers it will make several wonder if the Steelers kept the right quarterback moving forward.
Hoyer, who spent three seasons as a backup to Tom Brady with the New England Patriots after signing with them as an undrafted free agent in 2009, has appeared in 14 NFL games during his career, 13 with the Patriots, then last week in Arizona\’s 28-13 loss to Bears.
