Respect. He wouldn't have been a play for either of those teams, IMO, especially not for the Rams. Both are looking for franchise guys and Hoyer has now proven in two cities that he is not one of those.
EVERY franchise wants a franchise guy if they don't have one. But that doesn't mean they always go all-out for one every chance they get.
Denver has Mark Sanchez and Trevor Siemian (had to look this up) at their QB depth chart right now. They're not in position to take one of the top QBs in the draft as it stands. Hoyer is not a franchise QB, but you really can't argue decisively that he's any worse than any of their other QBs right now.
As for the Rams, over the past 2 seasons, they've started Austin Davis, Shaun Hill, Nick Foles, and Case Keenum. I'm not saying Hoyer is a good option, but they clearly have been willing to go entire seasons without that franchise guy. If they signed Hoyer, I think they still target one of the top QBs because they do want a franchise QB, but I wonder if they would have been less desperate and not as willing to overpay a fortune like they did.
And he could start for the Jets as a cheaper option over Fitzpatrick.
He could also have secured a solid veteran backup option. Consider last season, Matt Cassel started 8 games! Zach Mettenberger started multiple games, as did Matt Hasselbeck and Austin Davis.
Again, Hoyer is not a franchise QB, not a great player, not saying any of that. But he could have found a nice role somewhere. The Browns didn't do him any favours by releasing him so late. And he absolutely could still start for some teams. That's how terrible the QB situation is. We don't always think about it because we have the GOAT, but most teams struggle, sometimes for decades, to find that guy. Or the guy they have is promising, but they keep waiting for them to get to the top of the hill (Matt Ryan, Jay Cutler, Andy Dalton, etc).
