Report: Johnny Manziel was disinterested with Browns, 'had no clue' during practice
By
Greg Rajan
Updated 3:43 pm, Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Johnny Manziel is no longer a Cleveland Brown, having been jettisoned by the franchise that placed its faith in him as the savior for a long-suffering fan base.
According to a new report, the Manziel who was in Cleveland the past two seasons was one who slept off hangovers in the back of equipment rooms and was ill-prepared and "had no clue" about being a quarterback at the NFL level.
Emily Kaplan of Sports Illustrated's The MMQB website did a deep dive into Manziel's Browns tenure titled "The Fall of Johnny Football" and the findings were far from positive for a quarterback better known for his off-field partying than any achievements of note on the gridiron.
According to the report, Manziel had come back from his two-month stint in a Pennsylvania rehab facility last spring a changed man. He hired Julius Scott, his former high school offensive coordinator in Kerrville, as something of a life coach and by last July, "coaches and friends had the sense that Manziel had his life under control."
However, that didn't last, as Scott was dismissed by the summer, as friends said Manziel "found his presence overbearing" and then-girlfriend Colleen Crowley moved into Manziel's home in suburban Cleveland.
On the field, Manziel reportedly checked out mentally after he wasn't made the starter following a victory over Tennessee in Week 2. He reportedly believed the starting job was his, but when former Browns coach Mike Pettine declared veteran Josh McCown as the starter after he cleared concussion protocol, Manziel was "incredulous."
Being sent back to backup duty apparently was a tipping point for Manziel, and "instigated Manziel's downward spiral," Kaplan reported.
Friends too, noticed that Manziel was disengaged after the Titans game, though they saw him regroup a few more times during the season. Before the Steelers game in Week 10, for example, Manziel was acting with confidence, as Pettine had just tapped him as the starter for a second consecutive game.
"If Johnny doesn't have a carrot dangling in front of him, he resorts to his default," says a friend. "And his default is not giving a s---."
As for the partying that consumed his off-field life, Browns coaches reportedly issued several warnings to Manziel during the season, which Kaplan reported included Pettine summoning Manziel into his office before the Week 11 bye and telling the QB, "Don't do anything that will embarrass us."
Manziel was then filmed partying in Austin, with the video going viral and getting him demoted to third string.
"The moment he saw that video on Twitter," a friend says, "His reaction was literally, 'F---!' He knew he screwed up. He knew he shouldn't have done that."
Manziel's behavior also reportedly included showing up late to the Browns' facility for meetings and per sources, sometimes sleeping off hangovers in equipment rooms.
Meanwhile, the company he kept troubled Manziel's marketing team, who tried to get him to separate from his entourage.
On several occasions, they plopped the quarterback in front of a white board, mapping out the times he got in trouble and the people he was with when those incidents occurred.
As for his professional development, Kaplan's report described a Manziel who was uninterested in all the off-field work that goes into being an NFL quarterback.
Manziel had never had a playbook before he entered the NFL — Texas A&M issued its players weekly game plans—and he barely studied it. He struggled through weekly quarterback tests. At practice, the offense would run a set of 10 scripted plays, with Manziel (as the No. 2 QB) running two of them. He would brush up on those two plays, and only those two plays.
"(So) when he was thrust into (the starter's) role, it became very clear he had no idea what was going on," says a former Browns coach. "He went out there and had no clue."
During the 2014 season, when then-starter Brian Hoyer was injured and Manziel's workload was increased, "he'd often blank," leaving offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan to simplify the playbook to the point where a Browns source said "you or I could have lined up under center."
Manziel also reportedly didn't endear himself to team officials by uttering remarks like "I bet it's nice in Dallas right now" during a cold day at practice.
Kaplan also touched on Manziel's days at Texas A&M and Kerrville Tivy, where he reportedly operated with an air of entitlement and being an untouchable.
"In a lot of ways, he was the anti-Texas A&M personality," Jason Cook, the Senior Associate Athletic Director who was directly involved with all marketing campaigns in 2013, told The MMQB.
"The university has always been known as tradition-rich and conservative. Johnny was flashy, he was confident, he was unpredictable. That's something that attracted both Aggies and non-Aggies."
Unfortunately for Manziel, his NFL antics don't seem to be attracting interest from teams anytime soon.
