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The Browns will put Brian Hoyer under center in Week 1 when the Steelers host the Browns to kick off the 2014 season.
Rookies don't fare well against the Steelers' defense since Dick LeBeau assumed the defensive coordinator position. But it's not as if veterans fared significantly better.
Since 2004, quarterbacks making their first start against LeBeau have gone 13-27, averaging a completion percentage of 56 and less than one touchdown per game. Of those 41 quarterbacks, 19 of them failed to throw a touchdown and 10 times the quarterback was intercepted two or more times.
Hoyer will be the second consecutive veteran starter to get the nod against LeBeau in Week 1, with Tennessee's Jake Locker having managed to best LeBeau last season despite going 11-for-20 for 125 yards. He didn't turn the ball over, one of the biggest reasons Tennessee pulled out a 16-9 victory in Week 1 - Pittsburgh's third consecutive season-opening loss.
These numbers are bracketed a bit by the fact the Steelers faced seven first-time quarterbacks last year, going just 4-3, having lost to Locker's Titans, Terrelle Pryor and the Raiders and Miami's Ryan Tannehill. They beat the most experienced first-time quarterbacks, Matthew Stafford (Detroit) and Matt Flynn (Green Bay) while topping rookies Geno Smith (Jets) and E.J. Manuel (Bills).
The rookies have had the most difficult time, compiling a 2-15 mark against LeBeau. The only victories came from a Troy Smith-led Ravens team in a Week 17 throwaway game at the end of the 2007 season. The Steelers rested most of their starters, having already sealed the division and a Wild Card-round playoff game at home against Jacksonville. The second was against Cleveland - the Browns second win over the Steelers in a decade - when Brandon Weeden did just enough to capitalize on seven Steelers turnovers (eight if you count the final play of the game) to win 20-14.
The Browns make up seven of the 41 games, going 2-7 in that time. Brady Quinn led Cleveland to their only win ever at Heinz Field, a 13-6 snooze-fest regarded by many Steelers fans as the worst game of the Mike Tomlin Era - possibly one of the worst ever. Quinn was 6-for-19 for 90 yards with no touchdowns and, again, no interceptions. In the 13 first-start QB wins, they've collectively thrown for nine interceptions with just two of them throwing for more than one - Denver's Jay Cutler in 2007 and Pryor last year.
Of this list, Hoyer will become the first to have been a member of the Steelers prior to making his first start against LeBeau. He was brought onto the team as an emergency back-up in 2012 when Ben Roethlisberger and Byron Leftwich were injured.
| Quarterback | Date | Tm | Opp | Result | CMP | ATT | Cmp% | Passing Yds | TD | INT | QB Rating | Y/A | |
| Kyle Boller | 9/19/2004 | BAL | PIT | W 30-13 | 10 | 18 | 55.56% | 98 | 0 | 0 | 71.1 | 5.44 | |
| A.J. Feeley | 9/26/2004 | MIA | PIT | L 3-13 | 13 | 27 | 48.15% | 137 | 0 | 2 | 32.5 | 5.07 | |
| Carson Palmer | 10/3/2004 | CIN | @ | PIT | L 17-28 | 20 | 37 | 54.05% | 164 | 1 | 2 | 52.1 | 4.43 |
| Patrick Ramsey | 11/28/2004 | WAS | @ | PIT | L 7-16 | 19 | 34 | 55.88% | 138 | 1 | 1 | 63.1 | 4.06 |
| Byron Leftwich | 12/5/2004 | JAX | PIT | L 16-17 | 16 | 27 | 59.26% | 268 | 1 | 0 | 105.2 | 9.93 | |
| Eli Manning | 12/18/2004 | NYG | PIT | L 30-33 | 16 | 23 | 69.57% | 182 | 2 | 1 | 103.9 | 7.91 | |
| Kyle Orton | 12/11/2005 | CHI | @ | PIT | L 9-21 | 17 | 35 | 48.57% | 207 | 0 | 0 | 67.2 | 5.91 |
| Charlie Frye | 12/24/2005 | CLE | PIT | L 0-41 | 20 | 39 | 51.28% | 183 | 0 | 0 | 64.4 | 4.69 | |
| Philip Rivers | 10/8/2006 | SDG | PIT | W 23-13 | 24 | 37 | 64.86% | 242 | 2 | 1 | 90.1 | 6.54 | |
| Andrew Walter | 10/29/2006 | OAK | PIT | W 20-13 | 5 | 14 | 35.71% | 51 | 0 | 1 | 17.3 | 3.64 | |
| Bruce Gradkowski | 12/3/2006 | TAM | @ | PIT | L 3-20 | 20 | 34 | 58.82% | 175 | 0 | 3 | 35.8 | 5.15 |
| Derek Anderson | 12/7/2006 | CLE | @ | PIT | L 7-27 | 21 | 37 | 56.76% | 276 | 1 | 1 | 78.2 | 7.46 |
| Alex Smith | 9/23/2007 | SFO | @ | PIT | L 16-37 | 17 | 35 | 48.57% | 209 | 1 | 1 | 65.1 | 5.97 |
| Matt Leinart | 9/30/2007 | ARI | PIT | W 21-14 | 7 | 14 | 50.00% | 93 | 0 | 0 | 71.4 | 6.64 | |
| Jay Cutler | 10/21/2007 | DEN | PIT | W 31-28 | 22 | 29 | 75.86% | 248 | 3 | 2 | 106.7 | 8.55 | |
| Kellen Clemens | 11/18/2007 | NYJ | PIT | W 19-16 | 14 | 31 | 45.16% | 162 | 1 | 1 | 58.8 | 5.23 | |
| John Beck | 11/26/2007 | MIA | @ | PIT | L 0-3 | 14 | 23 | 60.87% | 132 | 0 | 0 | 76.7 | 5.74 |
| Troy Smith | 12/30/2007 | BAL | PIT | W 27-21 | 16 | 27 | 59.26% | 171 | 1 | 0 | 90.2 | 6.33 | |
| Joe Flacco | 9/29/2008 | BAL | @ | PIT | L 20-23 | 16 | 31 | 51.61% | 192 | 1 | 0 | 81.7 | 6.19 |
| Jason Campbell | 11/3/2008 | WAS | PIT | L 6-23 | 24 | 43 | 55.81% | 206 | 0 | 2 | 49.2 | 4.79 | |
| Brady Quinn | 12/10/2009 | CLE | PIT | W 13-6 | 6 | 19 | 31.58% | 90 | 0 | 0 | 48.1 | 4.74 | |
| Chad Henne | 1/3/2010 | MIA | PIT | L 24-30 | 16 | 20 | 80.00% | 140 | 1 | 1 | 91.7 | 7 | |
| Matt Ryan | 9/12/2010 | ATL | @ | PIT | L 9-15 | 27 | 44 | 61.36% | 252 | 0 | 1 | 67.6 | 5.73 |
| Josh Freeman | 9/26/2010 | TAM | PIT | L 13-38 | 20 | 31 | 64.52% | 184 | 0 | 1 | 67.1 | 5.94 | |
| Colt McCoy | 10/17/2010 | CLE | @ | PIT | L 10-28 | 23 | 33 | 69.70% | 281 | 1 | 2 | 80.5 | 8.52 |
| Mark Sanchez | 12/19/2010 | NYJ | @ | PIT | W 22-17 | 19 | 29 | 65.52% | 170 | 0 | 0 | 81.1 | 5.86 |
| Jimmy Clausen | 12/23/2010 | CAR | @ | PIT | L 3-27 | 10 | 23 | 43.48% | 72 | 0 | 1 | 33.2 | 3.13 |
| Curtis Painter | 9/25/2011 | IND | PIT | L 20-23 | 5 | 11 | 45.45% | 60 | 0 | 0 | 62.7 | 5.45 | |
| Blaine Gabbert | 10/16/2011 | JAX | @ | PIT | L 13-17 | 12 | 26 | 46.15% | 109 | 1 | 0 | 70.8 | 4.19 |
| Andy Dalton | 11/13/2011 | CIN | PIT | L 17-24 | 15 | 30 | 50.00% | 170 | 2 | 2 | 61.8 | 5.67 | |
| Tyler Palko | 11/27/2011 | KAN | PIT | L 9-13 | 18 | 28 | 64.29% | 167 | 0 | 3 | 40.9 | 5.96 | |
| Robert Griffin III | 10/28/2012 | WAS | @ | PIT | L 12-27 | 16 | 34 | 47.06% | 177 | 1 | 0 | 72.8 | 5.21 |
| Brandon Weeden | 11/25/2012 | CLE | PIT | W 20-14 | 17 | 26 | 65.38% | 158 | 1 | 1 | 78.7 | 6.08 | |
| Thaddeus Lewis | 12/30/2012 | CLE | @ | PIT | L 10-24 | 22 | 32 | 68.75% | 204 | 1 | 1 | 83.3 | 6.38 |
| Jake Locker | 9/8/2013 | TEN | @ | PIT | W 16-9 | 11 | 20 | 55.00% | 125 | 0 | 0 | 74 | 6.25 |
| Geno Smith | 10/13/2013 | NYJ | PIT | L 19-6 | 19 | 34 | 55.88% | 201 | 0 | 2 | 48.8 | 5.91 | |
| Terrelle Pryor | 10/27/2013 | OAK | PIT | W 21-18 | 10 | 19 | 52.63% | 88 | 0 | 2 | 25.7 | 4.63 | |
| E.J. Manuel | 11/10/2013 | BUF | @ | PIT | L 23-10 | 22 | 39 | 56.41% | 155 | 1 | 1 | 63.5 | 3.97 |
| Matthew Stafford | 11/27/2013 | DET | @ | PIT | L 37-27 | 19 | 46 | 41.30% | 362 | 2 | 1 | 74.7 | 7.87 |
| Ryan Tannehill | 12/8/2013 | MIA | @ | PIT | W 34-28 | 20 | 33 | 60.61% | 200 | 3 | 1 | 95.5 | 6.06 |
| Matt Flynn | 12/22/2013 | GB | PIT | L 38-31 | 21 | 39 | 53.85% | 232 | 1 | 1 | 69.6 | 5.95 | |
| Totals | 13-29* | 679 | 1211 | 56.07% | 7,131 | 30 | 39 | 5.89 | |||||
| Rookies | 2-17* | 273 | 494 | 55.26% | 2,729 | 12 | 15 | 5.52 | |||||
| *Baltimore's Joe Flacco and Cincinnati's Andy Dalton also had additional starts against Pittsburgh their rookie seasons, both were losses. | |||||||||||||
| Produced by Behind The Steel Curtain | |||||||||||||
| Stats obtained via ESPN and Pro Football Reference | |||||||||||||