Kyle Shanahan thinks Brian Hoyer has benefited from adversity

It has been a long and difficult road for Brian Hoyer, bouncing from team to team, coast to coast, offensive system to offensive system.

Through it all, he has managed to persevere. Now in his ninth season in the NFL, Hoyer finds himself as the starting quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers. That would be the seventh club to employ him.

‘He’s throwing the ball well and calling the plays right’

Kyle Shanahan, the 49ers’ first-year coach, thinks Hoyer has benefitted from all of that moving around and has shown it with his strong performance through training camp.

“He’s looked very comfortable and very good here,” Shanahan told Jim Miller and Pat Kirwan during the SiriusXM NFL Radio training camp tour stop at Niners’ camp. “He’s throwing the ball well and calling the plays right, getting the ball to the right people.”

‘I think (being in Cleveland with Johnny Manziel) was a little tough on him, always looking over his shoulder’

Shanahan first met Hoyer in Cleveland in 2014, when Shanahan was the Browns’ offensive coordinator and Hoyer was feeling the heat from the fact the team had made a high-profile player, Johnny Manziel, its first-round draft pick.

“I think that was a little tough on him, always looking over his shoulder every time he threw a pick and things like that,” Shanahan said. “It’s tough to play in that situation. And he went to Houston, went through some stuff, too. Went to Chicago, really, as a backup and ended up playing very well as a starter when Jay (Cutler) got hurt.

‘I think he was going to be better regardless with his mental state’

“I think going through all those situations, facing that adversity that he’s been through, fighting through it, I think he was going to be better regardless with his mental state. You know, all of us go through situations and you learn from them and I think he has. And now to get here, to really mature in that way anyway and to be in a situation where he knows he has our support, he doesn’t have to look over his shoulder, I think has added to it and I think he’s playing better for it.”