2 at most. I have doubts he would have lasted 2 games without serious injury. Notwithstanding his wins last year Colt McCoy has been a career backup for a reason. He’s just not that good.
I doubt this mainly because Colt's wins last year were without Hopkins and the offense looked better than it ever has. We've learned the hard way how dependent Kyler is on Hopkins and how awful the whole offense looks. Now Colt has his obvious flaws, mainly being made of glass, but his performance is truly shocking taken in context.
Last year against the Seahawks Colt went 35-44 for 328 yards and a 112.9 Passer Rating and completion percentage 79.6%
Against the eventual NFC runner ups he went 22-26 for 249 yards and a 119.4 Passer Rating, completion percentage 84.6%
Again both games Colt did not have Hopkins. He ran successful screens, moved defenses with his eyes and was able to dink and dunk his away across the field against 2 high safety looks. A couple times each game he hit a deep bomb. The offensive scheme looked awesome. Imagine if Colt had Hopkins to draw attention as well?
Now this year with Kyler, we have looked awful. Last year with Kyler without Hopkins we looked almost as bad as this year.
Kyler so far this year has not had A SINGLE GAME as good as either Colt's 49ers or Seahawks wins, even with Hopkins on the field. Comparing only the games without Hopkins, it's not even close. Passer rating, QBR and completion percentages are dramatically worse than Colt in all of them.
His best game so far this year is vs. the Saints (with Hopkins) with a completion rate of 69%, Passer rating of 100.4 and QBR of 61.9
In 2021, in the games where Hopkins did not play, Kyler's performances were worse than Colt again. With the Dallas game being closest to matching it. 68.4% completion rate and 100 Passer rating.
In my opinion based off of brief stat overview, the only game without Hopkins in Kyler's career where he put up a better performance is the 2019 Falcons. He put up 340 yards, 73% completion and 128.3 Passer rating.
Now it's unlikely Colt would sustain his high level of play for a whole season (Kyler has never had a game as bad as Colt's panthers game) but it is shocking to see a backup quarterback so thoroughly outperform the franchise starter in wins against division opponents. There is a legitimate argument that Colt could be better than Kyler and there shouldn't be considering how much Kyler makes. I'll make one right now: Who knows, maybe Colt could be (or could have been) the next Geno Smith! Maybe his career was wasted dealing with injuries, horrid Browns teams and even worse Redskins teams.
Again, when he doesnt have Hopkins, we haven't seen Kyler run the offense nearly as well as Colt managed to without Hopkins last year. Even in the games last year with Hopkins where Kyler performed better it never looked as consistent or methodical; it's always looked like Kyler is just out there winging it.
