DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum A Johnny Manziel Chronology with the Browns

BEREA, Ohio -- Johnny Manziel's offseason is off to a rip-roaring Instagram start, with Manziel already appearing in a late-night/early-morning nightclub video.

Which leads to the question: Is Manziel sincere when he offers heartfelt promises about taking his job more seriously, or is he playing everyone for fools?

The latest Manziel video, taken by itself, might mean nothing. But taken in the context and pattern of a season and lifestyle, it’s a slap in the face to the team and to every one of the Browns who do things the right way.

The night after saying he had to stop acting like a “jackass,” Manziel appeared in an Instagram video at a swanky hotel in Miami Beach (per the location tag on Instagram) to wish LeBron James a happy birthday.

Not two full days into the offseason, Manziel provided his first Internet appearance by yelling “Happy Birthday Bron Bron” in a Miami Beach bar. Less than 12 hours after promising a different approach, Manziel showed old habits.

General manager Ray Farmer said players were given this week off, so Manziel being in Miami Beach is not an issue.

“Everybody was allowed to leave here yesterday,” Farmer said.

He added that Manziel will continue to show up on the Internet.

“That’s going to be his lot in life,” Farmer said. “So regardless if he’s out drinking Voss water and somebody sees him somewhere, they’re going to take a picture and tweet it and it’s going to be relayed as though this guy’s out and he’s doing whatever. That’s his lot in life.”

Farmer compared it to being out with his wife and having his picture taken and posted on the Internet.

“There are a lot of us that walk in the circle of anonymity,” Farmer said. “When I leave this building, a lot of people don’t recognize me, so I can just walk out to the mall and enjoy my day. It’s not the same for him.”

Again, Manziel is entitled to his time. But given the circumstances of his plaintive speech in the locker room on Monday and then this video -- FaceTime doesn’t work on iPhones anymore? -- it’s worth going through his chronology.
Feb. 14 -- Before the draft, in February, Manziel said many of the same things about Johnny Football being gone and taking his job seriously.
May 9 -- Manziel texted the Browns during the draft and urged the team to take him so they could “wreck this league” together. After being taken 22nd overall, Manziel did his “money” sign as he walked on stage.
May 10 -- After the draft, Manziel partied the night away with magnums of champagne and celebrities.
May 26 -- Manziel appeared in several online photos in Vegas during a down time in the team's offseason work.
June 10 -- The now infamous photo was taken of him on the floating swan with a bottle of champagne.
June 16 -- The “money phone” video appeared.
June 27 -- At the rookie symposium, Manziel spoke with the media and said he would not change his life for anybody.
July 4 -- A photo of Manziel rolling money into a small tube in a Vegas bathroom appeared.
July 25 -- The Browns admit they were “alarmed” by some of Manziel’s behavior.
July 26 -- The Browns called Manziel in the day before training camp and spoke pointedly to him about his off-field habits. Owner Jimmy Haslam said the team “expects better from him.”
Aug. 14 -- Manziel was late for a training camp meeting, saying he “misread the schedule.”
Aug. 18 -- Manziel extended his middle finger to the Redskins' bench in a nationally televised game, for which he was fined $12,500.
Aug. 20 -- Brian Hoyer was named the starter and Manziel admitted not being ready.
Nov. 22 -- There was a lobby incident/fight between Manziel, a friend and a fan Manziel described as aggressive and intoxicated. The Browns expressed disappointment at the timing of the incident, at 2:36 a.m. the morning the team was flying to Atlanta for a game.
Dec. 1 -- Manziel replaces Hoyer in Buffalo and runs for a touchdown to end his first drive.
Dec. 12 -- Yahoo! posts a story detailing the crazed lifestyle Manziel had in college, and how he went from being a college player "to Elvis."
Dec. 14 -- Manziel started his first game against Cincinnati and threw for 80 yards as the Browns lost 30-0.
Dec. 21 -- Manziel pulls his hamstring and leaves the game just before halftime in Carolina.
Dec. 23 -- Manziel says he intends to take his job more seriously, that “it’s a job for me now.”
Dec. 27 -- Manziel did not show up for a team walk-through and treatment, with Browns security going to his home to find him. He later admitted to being out the night before.
Dec. 29 -- Manziel says he can't say anything more to prove himself, that he has to put his words into action. The team agrees.
Dec. 30 -- The Instagram video appeared with Manziel wishing James happy birthday.

All of these incidents, as Farmer conceded, are not exactly going out with your wife for dinner.

Then again, neither was sleeping through part of Peyton Manning’s passing camp when Manziel was at Texas A&M. He blamed that on feeling ill. Which means that at least he didn't misread the schedule.

And this pattern is supposed to magically change?

The Browns talk about playing like a Brown, about creating a winning culture. Yet they have a guy who is doing everything but play like a Brown, and who is disrespecting the very culture the team wants to create -- as well as the people creating it.

http://espn.go.com/blog/cleveland-browns...l-doesnt-get-it




Here is the video in case you wanted to be even more depressed at how well Teddy Bridgewater played this season.



http://instagram.com/p/xOCZ1tOPHj/

I don't see how that is such a big deal.

Creating a culture? LMAO...........does this guy not know the percentage of professional athletes that go to clubs? Seriously?

I hate that he acts like he's already made it in the NFL,,But, it's yesterdays news.

He says a lot of things that I know we "WANT" to hear. If he lives up to them, no problem, I don't have an issue with putting all this in the rear view mirror.

If he doesn't, he'll be someone other than the Browns problem to deal with.

Yeah, this writer has been banging the "we need to cut Johnny Manziel" drum all week. Darnell Docket posts about once a week his strip club debauchery and no one cares. The problem is that he is a QB, the spotlight is never going away.

My only issue is that Johnny hasn't learned. Bro, stop cheesin for the camera every time it's in your face. Have a good time, do whatever you want, but damn you have to know some slutty club owner/promoter is going to put that video out there to promote herself when you're having a good time.

Stop her/him, tell them yo get that camera the heck out of your face, problem solved. He can't say no.

Not being ready to play and not showing up to work are the bigger problem.
Had he come in and lit it up nobody would care what he did at night.

This is a far bigger issue than just 'going to the club'. He appears to be a complete idiot who lacks self-awareness on all fronts.

He's more or less following a JaMarcus Russell pattern.

We've already heard him say he's going to take it more seriously from now on, what? Three or four times in his rookie year?

Idiots usually don't stop being idiots overnight. And that's the type of light he's going to need to go on, very quickly.

You should know something about that.

The bigger issue , or should I say the simplification of the issue is to be SMART ENOUGH to go home and hibernate for a couple of months .. John is not that smart and I have issues with that !

They're both complete dumbasses who hit the NFL lazy and unprepared, and don't seem to be learning anything from their mistakes.



Have you ever seen or taken a Wonderlic test?

It's more of a measure of processing skills than intelligence. It's a timed test of simple questions. Here's some samples:

Paper sells for 21 cents per pad. What will four pads cost?

Assume the first two statements are true. Is the final one:
1. true, 2. false, 3. not certain?
The boy plays baseball. All baseball players wear hats. The boy wears a hat.

You guys are honestly trying to point to a Wonderlic score to show he's smart, in the face of everything else? Everything he's said and done since he's been in the national spotlight shows a complete dunce, but you're willing to dismiss all of that because he got a 32/50 on a timed basic cognitive abilities test? That's the srgument for his intelligence?

Know something about what?

Word.

I'm not so sure why this is SO much of a big deal..Looking at the timeline, for the majority of the season, he had no issues.

Do I like the attitude he is portraying? No, for sure.

What I am unclear on is the continued reference to not being ready...just what does that mean?

He has a QB coach [I'm guessing] that is putting the time and work to get him better. As part of the team, he is putting in the time to watch film, work on mechanics and learn the playbook- correct? Is not that part of the practice every week?

Are we talking about not working during his 'off' time? I get the discussion from Haslam on the off field perceptions 100%. what I don't understand is him not ready...Seems like the his coaches would be with him 14 hours a day in preparation.

This is not deflecting any blame from JM - Just wondering how you cannot be ready with all the NFL support??

Hmm, I'm mostly interested in the time of his last bowel movement along with how frequently he washes his car. Do we have the timeline for that as well?

Damn straight.

People need to lay off the kid.

It's not like he has any sort of history or track record of being a dumbass. I mean, if he'd wound up in a shirtless mugshot, or been photographed rolling bills in a bathroom, or not shown up for work, or admitted he wasn't taking things seriously after looking completely lost on the field, then there might be a valid argument as to these issues being troubling.

But none of that has happened. This is clearly just the media and those who hate Johhny for just being Johnny stirring the pot on a non-issue.

A football team (not to be mentioned here and it wasn't the Browns) showed up to a former roommates club and they dropped thousands and thousands of dollars on her.

She came out with us the next day and bought my birthday dinner (for all 12 of us) and a bunch of booze and still made enough money to live off of for the next 6 months.

That wasn't news. The only newsworthy item in that entire list is where he didn't show up on Saturday, everything else is none of our business. The kid is a media phenom, it's not going to stop.

All of our QBs looked lost on the field. Hoyer sucked. Manziel sucked. Shaw, he sucked too. I have a feeling most of you people are going to be quite disappointed when Manziel starts the season for us next year.

I also have a feeling that if he doesn't figure out how to play NFL football, we're ALL going to have a pretty disappointing 2015 as well.

There's a difference between UDFA QB's looking like UDFA QB's and first rounders looking like UDFA's.

There's also a difference in that Hoyer and Shaw didn't come into the league with a reputation for being idiots, nor did they exemplify exactly why that was a voiced concern.



Of course. Who wouldn't be?

I think that's the gist of the problem. Even with all the support the NFL provides, he's still not ready. The team can only mandate so much time that he has to work on his craft. You say 14 hours a day? I'm sure the CBA has something to say about that. Now if he wanted to stay there 14 hours a day they'd certainly work with him but they can't mandate it. Remember, he's not late if he shows up for a game at 1055 because the rule says he has to be there by 1100...

There is also the little matter of one of those 3 QB's going 9-6 in games he started - and I am NOT including the 2013 Bills win. How many Browns QB's since 1999 have gone 9-6? Two or three?

It had nothing to do with our uninjured OL, outstanding RB play or our defense doing it's job.

He did an excellent job handing off the ball, his throwing is the problem.

just clicking.
my thoughts on JM are these:

He needs to act like a pro, for sure. But when I watched the media scrum on Monday, I read a guy who understands that he's been screwing up, and understands that he needs to stop. The kid's been making mistakes, he knows it... and while I wish he hadn't made them, it is rare to find a 22-year-old who is a finished product as a human being.

I think we'll see a different Manziel in the off-season, at the OTAs and in training camp. If we don't, he probably won't be in Cleveland for very long.

I am rooting for him not just because I liked him in college (I think he's a winner, I loved how he kept punking Alabama), but mostly because I don't want another first-round pick wasted on a QB bust.

And no one here knows he'll be a bust. To make a determination based on six quarters of NFL experience - especially for a QB - would be ridiculous.

Here's an article from "Sportsnet" magazine, a Canadian magazine, from last September. It's long, but near the bottom I emboldened some of the parts that I found most interesting, perhaps insights into JFF no one knows about because the media keeps focussing on the sensational.


"Fans in Cleveland have been waiting years—decades—for a quarterback deserving of their love. If you ask people who know Johnny Manziel, they’ve found one.

“Is it time yet?” Michael Spring Jr. asks. “Dad, is it time?”

The binoculars are huge in his six-year-old hands, and he leans forward to give the lenses some help. He wears a brown T-shirt with “Manziel” written above “2” in white on the back. He nudges into his father, Mike Sr., a 32-year-old contractor, who sits beside him on the packed metal bleachers wearing a grey Browns T-shirt and a faded brown baseball cap.

“Almost, buddy,” Mike says. “It’s almost time.”

The Springs made the trip from Columbus to Berea, Ohio, a two-hour drive, and are among more than three thousand already in attendance at 9 a.m. on the opening day of Browns training camp—fans hoping that a new season will reverse the hard luck of a franchise that hasn’t won a championship in half a century. Some lined up at 2:30 a.m. to get seats. They bark wildly, a tradition of the “Dawg Pound,” as the team’s faithful are known. One man wears an orange-and-brown suit of armour. Another has sparkling green money signs taped all over him.

Every third person, it seems, wears something dedicated to the young man they’ve come to see, the one who has given them something to be excited about, something to believe in. “Money Manziel,” “Johnny Be Good,” “The House that Johnny Built”—all of the nicknames and tag lines Johnny Manziel has accumulated over the past two years on his rise to national fame with Texas A&M are plastered across shirts and hats and signs.

Michael Spring Jr. lifts his binoculars again as a few players jog out of the Browns’ training facility. “Is that him?” he asks.

No, not yet—no Johnny.

While the Browns’ starting quarterback role will initially go to homegrown veteran Brian Hoyer, it seems inevitable that Manziel will take over at some point this season. Cleveland is a team begging for a quarterback capable of magic.

The Browns have youth and talent on both sides of the ball, but they also have a long history of being cursed. They haven’t won a championship in 50 years and haven’t had a decent quarterback since the early ’90s. The most famous moments in Browns history are painful: The Drive in ’87, the Fumble in ’88. So the idea of Johnny Manziel brings a great deal of hope to this tortured sports city. They desperately need him to be a saviour, not another false pivot.

Collectively, we’ve been waiting for “Johnny Football” since he was a freshman at Texas A&M, when he won the Heisman Trophy and became an instant celebrity. His highlight-reel play, cocksure attitude and Playboy Mansion dream life turned him into one of the most polarizing figures in sport. We stared into the fishbowl of ESPN and TMZ, fascinated by his money-making gestures, his nightclub antics, his stacks of cash and however the hell he passed out on that inflatable swan.

He’s easy to hate, but evidently also easy to love. Without even throwing a football in an NFL game, Manziel’s No. 2 Browns jersey is already the NFL’s top seller. His first pre-season game set an NFL ratings record. Despite the fact that he’s starting as the backup, Vegas odds have him as the favourite for offensive rookie of the year. Meanwhile, Manziel’s detractors can’t wait to see him fail. On both sides of the divide, it’s a charged, intoxicating obsession.

There is something about Manziel that inspires extreme reactions. I went searching for the root of that, trying to find the heart of Manziel Mania and the truth about the 21-year-old kid behind it all—to talk to those who know him, and not the writers who loathe him. And somewhere along the way, I discovered just how easy it is to be sucked into the cult of his personality.

The story of Manziel’s American Dream begins in Kerrville, Texas, a sleepy town of 22,000 people about an hour outside of San Antonio. It is the kind of place where thousands show up for Friday night football games and high-school quarterbacks are kings. Manziel moved there with his family from Tyler, about six hours away, when he was in the seventh grade. And when he enrolled at Tivy High School and joined the freshman football team, incredible things started to happen.

Here’s one story: When Manziel was in his first year at the school of about 1,300, the varsity team sat
in the bleachers and watched the freshman team play. Colton Palmer, the six-foot-four varsity quarterback, had heard the new kid was good, but wanted to see for himself. On one play the ball was snapped well over Manziel’s head. The 14-year-old turned and ran after it. He caught it one-handed, spun on one foot and fired a 35-yard pass on a rope to his teammate in the end zone. “I can’t do that,” Palmer said after a long, astonished pause. “I can’t make that kind of throw.”

Later that season, Manziel sat alone at one end of the varsity locker room, after being called up to play receiver during the playoffs. Some of the older players wanted to let the kid know that this was the big time and plotted to set him up for a bone-crushing hit during a scrimmage. “He was scared shitless,” says Gareth Kirk, then the team’s backup quarterback, who ignored the planned initiation and walked over to welcome the rookie to the team. “He didn’t know anyone.”

During that practice, offensive coordinator Julius Scott called a deep route that sent Manziel bolting down the field. “Let’s see what this kid can do,” Scott said. As the rookie ran, Kirk threw a bomb into tight coverage. Manziel jumped over a defending corner, palmed the ball in one hand and kept his feet in bounds before falling out of the end zone.

“All of us kind of looked at each other like, ‘Did that really just happen?’” Kirk says. After that play there was no more talk of putting the rookie in his place. “The next year he came in guns blazing,” Kirk says. “He wasn’t scared to do anything.”

That’s how it began, with Manziel showing he belonged and earning the respect of peers who had previously wanted to keep him down. He became close friends with both Kirk and Palmer, the senior starter. Kirk picked Manziel up for practice every morning at 6:30 a.m. and the two listened to country music, planned pranks to play in class and complained about teachers. After morning classes, they ate breakfast at the Donut Palace or hit Rita’s for an early taco on game days. Manziel started on the varsity team as a sophomore—first at running back and then receiver. When Palmer was suspended for two games after getting busted for underage drinking, Manziel filled in. The night before his first game as varsity quarterback, Manziel went to Palmer’s house and sat on the back porch with the senior.

The two often hung out watching movies and playing Halo, but this time the future Johnny Football asked how he could get the team to follow him. Manziel wasn’t nervous, but he peppered Palmer with questions. “Look man,” Palmer eventually said, “if you go out there and play as hard as you can, nobody can play with you. You’re going to be great. You already know it.”

On the first play of the game, Manziel hit a receiver with a 50-yard pass. A few plays later, he ran 69 yards for a touchdown that was called back on penalties. The line moved back 20 yards. On the next snap, Manziel ran 89 yards and scored the touchdown again.

“His first game, it took five minutes for you to realize that you’re looking at something you’ve never seen before,” says Stuart Cunyus, the football reporter at the Hill Country Community Journal. “He moved on another level. He was a man among boys. He wasn’t big, he was still pretty skinny. He had a way of running. He threw perfect passes. When he got into trouble, he was able to work his way out of it. He leaped over people. It was unbelievable.”

The Antlers went to the state semi-final that season, with Manziel and Palmer alternating between quarterback and wide receiver. Trailing late in the game, Palmer told his coach to let him run the ball. Manziel spoke up and told Palmer to look for him in the end zone—“It was some leadership,” Palmer says—and after scrambling around searching for a place to run, Palmer hit Manziel, wide open in the end zone, for a touchdown.

The Antlers lost on a late field goal, seconds away from going to State. On the bus after the game, in a scene straight out of Friday Night Lights, Palmer sat in his regular seat eating a barbecue sandwich and reflecting on the end of his high-school career. He felt a large hand grip his shoulder. “I love you, man,” Manziel said. “Thanks for everything.”

Manziel’s on-field miracles drew a buzz, and soon reporters from San Antonio were showing up to cover Tivy games. Over the next two years, fans from across Texas flocked to watch Manziel. One couple drove all the way from California to see him play, says Mark Smith, the team’s head coach.

The serious recruiters, initially repelled by his lack of size, came after the hype, drawn by Manziel’s near-cult following in Kerrville. He was nicknamed the “Rocket Man” by Wally Reed, the voice of the Antlers on 94.3 Rev Radio. Reed speaks of Manziel in excited, loud hyperboles, comparing him to Joe Montana (“Saw Montana at 18; Montana was not Johnny Manziel at 18”), Tiger Woods (“Johnny is tougher, mentally, than Tiger ever was”) and James Dean (“They have a certain persona, don’t they?”). He swears that if he could travel back in time and was only allowed to see two athletes, he’d see Babe Ruth and Johnny Manziel (“Who else?”).

Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take long for Reed, who is now in his late 50s and runs an osteoporosis clinic, to become an unabashed superfan. By the time Manziel was a senior, being named Texas’s high school player of the year and shattering local records, Reed could be found standing on a street corner near Tivy every time the team bus left for an away game, holding up a seven-foot cardboard cutout of a rocket with the words “Rocket Man” written in big black letters.

“I used to stand on that corner with tears practically, shaking my rocket,” Reed says. “There is nobody like Johnny.”

Manziel was a baseball player, too. And a damn good one. True story: Manziel batted .416 with seven home runs and 12 doubles as a high-school junior, before taking his senior year to focus on football. Pittsburgh, Texas and Cincinnati were among the MLB teams that came asking about him. He had natural talent, coach Steve Rippee says, incredible bat speed and remarkable defensive instincts in the field, but it was his will that set him apart. He loved being doubted and loved to win—two forces fuelling his success.

“He’d get very upset if he got out” Rippee says. “He’d yell at himself.” During a close game, down a run, Rippee told Manziel to bunt to advance a runner. Manziel disagreed but obeyed his coach. He tried to push the ball out toward second base, but was narrowly tossed out. Manziel stormed into the dugout, furious
at his coach and himself. The next morning he came into Rippee’s office and apologized.

“You were right,” he said.

“Yep.” Rippee replied. But he’d already changed his mind.

“Knowing what he could do, I probably should have let him swing,” Rippee says now. “He probably would have hit one out.”

Confidence and athleticism weren’t the only things that set Manziel apart. “If you want to know what makes Johnny Manziel Johnny Manziel, here’s what,” says Julius Scott, the Antlers’ offensive coordinator. “This sounds like an anti-football thing, but Johnny has an enormous amount of love in his heart for mankind. He makes everybody better, because he genuinely loves and cares for them. That’s why people are drawn to him.”

Near the end of his senior year—already committed to Texas A&M and a state-wide sensation–—Manziel devised a plan to get another player on his team a touchdown during a home game. The player had never seen any game time before and had only made the team because he was a senior. “He wasn’t very good. He was 120 lb. soaking wet,” Scott says. “Could hardly lift a football.” Manziel came to his coach with the plan. After a late-game 50-yard rush, with the ball down at the two, the star quarterback looked to his coach and nodded. Scott took out his running back and put in the undersized, nervous bench player.

“He was scared out of his life,” Scott says. Off the snap, Manziel handed him the ball, but he just stood there as the defence rushed. So Manziel grabbed him by the jersey and dragged him into the end zone.

“The stands went crazy. His mother is bawling her eyes out. She says that’s the happiest moment of her life. The kid says that’s the happiest moment of his life. The kid got carried off the field,” Scott says. “He made a touchdown because, number one, it was Johnny Manziel’s idea, and, number two, Johnny Manziel got him into the end zone. He pulled that kid into the end zone.

“Everybody hears about him going to Las Vegas, riding the swans, getting drunk—whatever the hell he does. But they don’t hear that story. And that’s the kind of guy he is. People say, ‘Look at him, he’s very flamboyant.’ Shut your mouth! You don’t know the kid. I’ve talked to him from the time he went to A&M until now and do you know how every conversation ends? ‘I love you, coach.’”


That was the message I heard over and over: “You don’t know Johnny.” The media has it wrong, he’s a victim of their venom. Manziel lives life large on and off the field and he refuses to accept anything less, they said. That makes him exceptional, not degenerate. He’s one of a kind. “I believe in my heart, God has his hand on this kid,” Scott says. “I do.”

The coaches, friends and fans who’ve known Manziel longest all echoed the sentiment:

“Have you seen him around children?” I was asked. “He loves kids.”

“I don’t know what it is, or how to describe it, but he’s got something that draws people to him.”

“I’m going to sound like I’m writing love letters to Johnny, but he’s got the best smile you’ll ever see. He’s cool. Johnny is cool.”

“I believe that Johnny is going to show us perfection.”

Forget the critics, those lost non-believers. Is he smart enough to learn the Browns’ playbook? Are you kidding, he practically has a photographic memory! Won’t his out-of-control, freelancing style fall apart in the NFL? They’ve doubted him at every level! But what about all the flaws in his game? Shut your mouth. Flaws? What are you talking about? Is he a team player? He carried a teammate into the end zone! But is he a nice guy? Dammit, have you seen him with children?


Manziel Mania had me. I flipped through his Instagram account—that log of beautiful women and celebrity friends—and could only think of how cool his life must be. I scoffed when a prominent columnist suggested that Manziel would flounder in his first regular-season game. And when Manziel flipped the bird to his Washington opponents during the pre-season, I immediately thought, Well, why are they provoking him?

I understood the craze for this unproven quarterback, for all the show-me-the-money gestures and Johnny Football T-shirts, for all the belief, for all the hope. The perception of Manziel, the disdain for the rules and the damn-them-all appeal, fits perfectly in Cleveland—but also in America. The obsession is only partially about football. This is about the creation of modern heroes—flawed as they may be—and a man living the life we all dream we could.

So we keep searching for the “real” Johnny Football, wondering whether his legend will grow or wither in the burning light of our collective obsession. We wait and we watch: “Is
it time?”

This story originally appeared in Sportsnet magazine. Subscribe here.

And what did you read the week earlier, when he said the exact same thing and then didn't show up for work three days later?

Do you think he didn't realize it then, but suddenly did three days later?

LOL, I didn't see that one, but point taken.
What can I say? He seemed particularly humbled by the most recent transgression. I do see a lot of JM-bashing on here, though... on some levels it's understandable, but there are other times where it borders on hatred for someone no one here knows very well. Lots of people mess up when they're 21, 22 years old (and it's not like he punched his fiance out in an elevator - or beat his kid half to death).

If you didn't mess up when you were 21, then you must have been a completely boring person.

Gordon I am extremely ticked off at, JM not nearly as much,

Kid was placed on IR, his season over and he was late for treatment. Yawn. It was a huge deal fabricated by the media with saying others was late because he had this monster party. Frankly, he should sue for slander. What really happened was of minor significance.

Not like he was missing film sessions and was suspended for the last game or missing practice. Now he is in south beach, o no he might miss um not a damn thing.

I agree, mourg. It - missing a treatment - was totally blown out of proportion. he's a barely-turned 22 year old who had some friends from texas over during Christmas, partied too much and was late for a treatment.
Should we hang him in Cleveland or in Texas?

On what grounds?

Again, you guys keep trying to minimalize each incident as if it's an aberration and not a pattern.

He was a dumbass in college. He promised his coaches and fans he wouldn't act like a dumbass anymore. He kept acting like a dumbass.

He got to the pros and said he was ready to be a professional. Kept acting like a dumbass. Promised his coaches and fans he was done acting like a dumbass, then went out and acted like a dumbass again. Promised yet again that was all behind him.

Since you guys are into Wonderlic tests... what is the next most likely scenario here?

The reason all of this was ever an issue in the first place was that Manziel didnt really have an NFL skillset, which would require a lot of intelligence and drive to make it at the next level.

All of these incidents point to a guy who isnt willing or smart enough to work in order to make his low odds of success pay off. Turns out, those concerns were not only reasonable, but legitimate.

So why keep acting like it's the media trying to make something out of nothing, when it's quite clearly something?

He doesn't have NFL skills, nor does he appear to be prepared to work on his game. So why do you insist that all of the surrounding evidence is meaningless?

It's Tebow all over again.

went to Vegas during his time from mini camp. O no

was seen drunk and riding a pink swan o no

had a rolled up bill or was straightening a bill for the condom machine. Either way he is a sinner

he misread a schedule and was 30 mins late for a meeting along with nearly a dozen other players. such a criminal

Then there was that incident when he and 2 more players after practice had a beer and a burger at a local bar and it was almost 9:30 pm. he will never learn.

Oo and lets not forget the evil incident where he attended a basketball game during the week when there was debate about whether or not to start him.

And the worst of all and omg we should ban him from the NFL while on IR he was late for a treatment.

And then there was this time at ban camp and he had this flute

You're not even making a coherent argument.

Where did I call him a sinner or evil or say he should be banned from the NFL?

My argument is that he came into the league with a reputation for being an idiot. He's done just about everything one can to reinforce that reputation.

This is alarming, because he doesn't have an NFL skillset, and is a long shot to make it in this league. To overcome those low odds, he would need to be driven and intelligent.

He has shown neither of those traits.

On top of that, his employers have publicly asked him not to be an idiot, and his response has always been 'That's behind me' and then in the next breath says 'I'm just going to keep being a jackass, and I don't care what anyone thinks of it'.

How is that not a cause for valid concern, or an unfounded argument?

Yeah.

At least with Tebow, he gave a little fool's gold to justify the blind faith.

That, and you didn't have to worry about your organization being continually embarrassed by his presence on the roster.

At least Tebow was well liked. Just the league was not a good fit for him. Manziel needs to straighten up or ship out.

Three days prior to that, he admitted that he didn't really prepare for this season, and vowed he would take it more seriously.

This wasn't an isolated incident. Do I really need to go down the list of 'this kid is a clown who doesn't get it' moments?

Again, we are not talking about youthful missteps. We are talking about a long, consistent pattern.

If a picture of, say, Matt Ryan came up looking like an idiot or an ass, and the media went wild with it, then, sure, you could argue that it's being sensationalized.

But Matt Ryan doesn't have a laundry list of character issues. He didn't look like a guy who won a contest behind center. He doesn't have a history of constantly looking and sounding like an idiot or an ass.

I'm asking earnestly - how much of this can people defending him compartmentalize.

I've been saying from day one that he is an immature dunce who doesn't have an NFL skill set. He does have some athletic gifts, so success isn't impossible, but it isn't likely given what we've seen of him as a person.

Pretty much all evidence lines up with that. It's hard to argue otherwise.

I may not be right in the end...but I'm mounting a pretty good case at the moment.

And people are still dismissing it like it's nonsense. Some of the arguments are baffling. 'So he didn't show up for work? Oh, no. Weren't you 22?'.

And then in the next sentence they'll use the word 'desire' or 'leadership'.

Can anyone please give me an example of desire or leadership or intelligence that doesn't involve the boys game he came from?

Because I've got a pretty long list of evidence that goes the way of my argument.

This is the damn NFL. And we're saying 'ah, weren't you 22? Some days you don't show up for work. He's a kid.'

And that was 3 days after he apologized for not taking it seriously!

I mean...in what world isn't that alarming?

Shouldn't that be in Purple

jc

if manziel would have showed ANYTHING in terms of talent/future success/etc, I'd be more inclined to cut him some slack here ... but he showed me absolutely nothing to think he'd even be an average starter one day

Does his dad own this magazine?

The biggest issue I have with him is that he just isn't that good

I understand all the down on JM for sure and that he earned the criticism. I see a lot of people dissecting his words to the nth degree. It sounds like we translate "he didn't really prepare" to I ate nachos, drank beer, and partied when I should have been practicing. While that may be true, had he said "the NFL game is a lot quicker and tougher than I expected and I need to work even harder to make myself better"...just like every QB says after they lose "we need to work harder and get better"...I see a guy who red-shirted 1 year, had 2 great college years and excelled at A&M, and enters the NFL - totally unprepared for the NFL game speed complexity, and commitment - thus the not prepared.

Can he succeed - I have not a clue - looking at all of our QB's since our return, dang - can't one of them succeed..

One positive JM - we've never had a QB like him [in attitude for sure] so maybe he will pan out / maybe not. We've had a ton of the standard 'stock' QB's so why not see what he can do...good lord we could use some different attitude to shake things up...

I don't think I have ever witnessed such a hateful person as yourself.

Go get laid, man.

You are the most negative and hateful person I have ever encountered. This is supposed to be fun.

Not sure what happened to you, because you were not nearly so unpleasant a few years ago, but man, it's to the point where I know what you are going to say before you say it. It's all about hate and proving how superior you are w/each and every post.

I actually feel sorry for you.

Some feel he is stealing Hoyer's birth right and cant get over the fact that Johny is gonna be the QB next year and Hoyer wont be back. So Johny will be their focal point and then it will be those that did not want Hoyer to return.