DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Johnny Football Documentary?

I'm not saying he isn't doing much better. I'm just saying I'm not convinced based on that documentary that is so.

All I will say is that I find it amazing that the spectrum of human beings to play football for the Browns contains both Chubb and Manziel.

Hated the player, that draft, and if memory serves me right Derek Carr was the player I wanted.

I would have taken Carr any day over Johnny

I don't watch the college game, so I don't take interest in a player until they become a Browns player. I'd heard about Manziel in the weeks leading up to the draft, but that was it. When he was drafted, I went to YouTube and looked at a bunch of his hype reels. My impression at the end of that evening:

"We spent our first on that?"
I really was not impressed, Heisman or not.

no doubt about it ... he was all backyard ball and nothing in his game could translate to the NFL . Truly a dumb pick

When the Browns picked JFF I just put my head in my hands and said here we go again. Then came Baker and I did the same.

With zero interest, I'll try my best not to talk you into it.

Good production. Nice pacing of the story. There is plenty you didn't know or don't remember as we're going back to when he was recruited to A&M.

I've always tried to be a good enough human to at least try to put myself into someone else's shoes. I feel like we should strive to always make that the prerequisite to 'judging'.

We see this type of story play out in a lot of different ways through a lot of eras. Predominantly in sports, music, and cinema. Look at suicide rates among these individuals, they always seem to be shortly after their biggest successes.

So the next (obvious) conclusion is almost always "drugs". Drugs are often the tool to escape the heat of the spotlight.

Combine this situation with the following... certain humans (maybe many more than we think) have a 'self-destruct' gene that lies dormant, waiting for the situation to prevent itself. So here's the cycle: Incredible success at a very fast rate > bar set very high > inability or fear of inability to raise that bar > criticism for not raising the bar > extreme drug use and seeking escape > self-destruct mode.

You see this in Johnny with his extreme relief in complete failure with the Cleveland Browns. The night he said "screw it" and stayed in Vegas, and threw away his NFL career, was among the happiest in his life -- you can hear it in his voice.

There you go... an extreme over analysis of the Johnny Football story. 🤣 One that you watch start to play out on the screen the second the white-hot spotlight hits him.

Johnny Manziel is definitely a unique athlete. - I can’t imagine playing college football in any conference being under 6’0 and under 215 lbs. How he was that durable is beyond me. As far as his behavior- he’s like so many athletes before him that started believing his own hype. The biggest difference is-Johnny never had that person to knock him upside the head and remind him who he was.
His hs football program was run like a boot camp - every one dressed the same and had to complete the same exercises, go through the same trials. - This provided the structure and routine that he needed. His dad was spot on when he said that his college coaches (not a direct quote) didn’t do a good job of reining him in and keep him focused.
To think, Johnny is the primary reason why his college coaches- Kevin Sumlin and Cliff Kingsbury are multi-millionaires today.

Everything came too easy for Johnny in college. - And everyone thought that A&M’s success was because of Johnny. However, nobody bothered to notice that he had some thoroughbreds on his offense - Mike Evans, Jake Mathews, and Luke Joeckel to name a few.

When it came that easy to him in college, he thought that he was indeed that good and could get by on talent alone in the nfl.

Compare him to two other qbs that had in much tougher in college and knew that they’d have to work twice as hard in the nfl. Baker Mayfield and Dak Prescott. - Both of whom had to work their butts off to make a name for themselves in college and both of whom put in the work necessary to have decent nfl careers.

My take: I can’t blame Johnny for being the cocky, arrogant kid that he was. I blame his family and collegiate coaches for not looking out for Johnny’s best long-term interests. Either way, he’s still alive, still appears to have some money to his name, and will hopefully move on to better things.

Johnny bears a lot of responsibility... his coaches didn't make him drink and party...

but I do agree... his college coaches should have held him more accountable... especially his sophomore year... the half game suspension was a joke...

then I blame the browns front offense.... no way in hell he should have been drafted in the first round... way too many red flags...

I had a few similar thoughts with Baker... but Baker didn't feel as far gone as Johnny was....

I was a little more OK with the Baker pick because he was more polished and a bit bigger, but still didn't love it. I kinda wanted Allen, but admittedly didn't love the prospect of having to develop him so much

When Manziel was named the starter before the bye week in 2014 and decided to go home to party instead of staying in Cleveland and preparing, I knew he was a lost cause. I wanted us to draft him, lol. He flamed out so hard that he eventually got himself kicked out of the CFL. I’d never seen that happen!

I didn’t want to draft Baker because he was/is a short QB without quick feet. Bad combo in the NFL. But I appreciate some of the things he did for us and won’t bad-mouth him.

j/c...

Another documentary from the Untold docuseries on Netflix, Swamps Kings. Peen should enjoy this one....