The New England Patriots on Saturday cut longtime backup quarterback Brian Hoyer, NFL reporter Adam Caplan reported.
The move leaves Tom Brady and rookie Jarrett Stidham as the only quarterbacks on the reigning Super Bowl champions’ active roster.
The move comes as teams must trim their rosters to 53 players by 4 p.m. ET on Saturday.
Hoyer, 33, spent parts of five seasons over two different stints with the Patriots. He never started a game in New England but did play in 23 contests with the team, completing 32 of 51 passes for 335 yards with a touchdown and an interception. He has also spent time with Arizona, Cleveland, Houston, Chicago and San Francisco.
In all, Hoyer has played in 65 games with 37 starts, passing for 9,902 yards with 48 touchdowns and 30 interceptions.
But Stidham, a fourth-round pick in this year’s draft out of Auburn, had a solid preseason. He completed 61 of 90 passes (67.8 percent) for 731 yards, four touchdowns and an interception. Only Tampa Bay’s Ryan Griffin threw for more yards this preseason.
In other quarterback news, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported that Denver is cutting backup Kevin Hogan and Cincinnati is placing backup Jeff Driskel on injured reserve and may release him via an injury settlement.
As is the case in New England, the moves leave the Broncos and Bengals with rookies as their No. 2 quarterbacks. The Broncos will have rookies Brett Rypien and Drew Lock (currently nursing a thumb injury) behind Joe Flacco, while the Bengals will back Andy Dalton up with Ryan Finley. Lock was a second-round pick out of Missouri while Finley was taken in the fourth round out of North Carolina State. Rypien was undrafted out of Boise State.
–Field Level Media
