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Joe Haden says Johnny Manziel intends to start: 'He said he took things for granted; he's living his dream'


By Mary Kay Cabot, Northeast Ohio Media Group
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on May 15, 2015 at 2:20 PM, updated May 15, 2015 at 6:11 PM

AURORA, Ohio ---Browns cornerback Joe Haden, who's close to Johnny Manziel and hangs out with him, said it's his buddy's intention to start the season regardless of who has the edge right now.

"Oh for sure,'' Haden said at the Browns Foundation golf outing at Barrington Golf Club. "He's a competitor. I think it's all about competition. We have Josh McCown. We have Johnny. We have (Connor) Shaw. All those guys. Just all of them feel like they can win the starting job.

"Competition brings out the best in you and I think that's good for Johnny and all the other quarterbacks who are going to compete against each other.''

Haden, who has Manziel over to his house and also plays basketball with him, said Manziel realizes now more than ever the opportunity at hand.

"He said he took a lot of things for granted,'' said Haden. "Just being able to go back there and realize that he is in the NFL. He's living his dream. He's a quarterback in the National Football League and what that entitles him. I think he understands that and I'm very happy for him.''

Four weeks into the offseason program, Haden has seen Manziel maintaining his feverish post-rehab work ethic. Manziel attended the golf outing and shook hands with reporters, but declined to be interviewed.

"I can see just him trying to be involved a little bit more in the offense,'' he said. "(I see) him studying a lot more, him being in the facility a lot more. Him being involved with his coaches, just staying after and getting that one-on-one and being able to understand what he has to do. Just a different mentality. I'm really excited about it.''

Browns coach Mike Pettine declared last week that Josh McCown is the favorite to start the season and that he doesn't want an open competition in camp, but Haden isn't the only one not counting out Manziel. Browns general manager Ray Farmer, who loves competition, is eager to see how it all plays out.

"Again, that's not my call. That's Pett's call,'' he said at the Golf outing of Manziel's shot to start the opener. "But again, I watch the film, I evaluate guys and at the end of the day, the best man always wins in my mind. Whoever plays the best is who should play.''

Farmer, who's all about bringing in guys to make you sweat a little harder, said at the NFL annual meeting that shutting Manziel down to let him focus on his recovery was not the right strategy.

"That'd be the equivalent of me telling you that I could predict the future and tell you that he's not prepared,'' Farmer said. "If he is prepared and he demonstrates the things that he needs to demonstrate, then yeah he should get every opportunity to be the guy. I think that's what it comes down to.''

Farmer disagreed with the notion that the Browns are merely trying to take the pressure off Manziel since he's just over a month out of rehab.

"My conversations with him have been pretty deliberate, like 'you've got to come and compete,''' said Farmer. "This is still the National Football League. There's no rest for the weary. We get it. We're supportive of him and his personal endeavors and he's got to come out and perform and demonstrate that he's worthy of being on the 53-man roster.''

He's been encouraged by everything he's seen so far from the post-rehab Manziel, including his move to a nice, quiet golf community in a west side suburb.

"The positives are the positives,'' he said. "At the end of the day I feel good that he is a young man that's doing the best he can with the circumstances he has. He wants to give himself the best opportunity. Whatever he thinks those adjustments need to be, those are things that he's going to do.''

Football-wise, he's still seeing some of the same flashes of excellence that he saw on film, the ones that prompted him to trade up from No. 26 to No. 22 to draft Manziel last year.

"I would contend that I see a guy that's doing everything he can to put himself in the best situation possible, so like I said, I think he's throwing the ball well,'' he said. "Again, I'm not an offensive coordinator. I can't tell you if he made the right read on the dig or he should've thrown it to the wheel route, but even in those situations, you watch what the guy's doing. Right now it's not competitive. There's not defenders running in there. It's all air. (But) when you see the guy throw the ball, he can throw it. It looks good right now, so we'll see.''

Meanwhile, the players are bonding with McCown, who's proving to be one of the guys.

"He's a real cool dude, man,'' said Haden. "On one of our days in the winter he went to Baldwin Wallace with us and played basketball. Really cool guy. I know he coached his kids in AAU. He just seems like a pro's pro and I really like him. I haven't had a chance to see him throw or anything else yet because the offense goes out there at separate times. Just from a personal level, he's a real cool dude.''

link

All that fluff.



Who believes Text at this point.

Have you renamed Farmer "TEXT"?

Anyway, I don't have any reason to NOT believe him. it's not like he lied about texting did he?

j/c

It becomes so aggravating, year after year, to read these positive fluff pieces about our QB situation ... and then by the season we have hot garbage under center.

Obviously I know Haden/Thomas/Mack/etc could never tell the "truth" ... but it gets tiresome

While I do believe it's an accurate view of what the players see and believe, I think we both know hope springs eternal this time of the year. lol

Lol good afternoon to you too eo

I'm not saying I don't enjoy hearing from our players, I'm just saying that it seems to be the same thing every year in May/June/July ... suck, rinse, repeat ... same results every season

Basically, my problem is not with the actual quotes/articles ... it's the fact that the RESULTS have stayed the same.

I'd rather have the players all just say "We are failures until proven otherwise. Let's hope our actions this season speak louder than anything we can say right now."

What's wrong with some positive attitude? Nothing in that article says "Johnnie is going to be the man, mark my words." What it is saying is he is taking it seriously, he is trying to do his best instead of mailing it in like he did in his rookie year. Whether his best is good enough remains to be seen, but I am encouraged that his attitude is reported to be so much improved. Later we will see if his changed attitude translates into production on the field. I have said repeatedly, all he has to do is be better than McCown. As mediocre as McCown's history is, that shouldn't be hard to do.

Why continue this thread?
I'd pay real money to end it...

LOL! I approve of the name change 100%. He is known henceforth as "Text."

JOHNNY FOOTBALL!

JOHNNY FOOTBALL!

+1

We are undefeated! So is every other club. Many here said, like me, "show us"; some vets are seeing more. Good. Show me on the field.

Of course he intends to start, if he didn't I'd hope we just cut him and call lies to all the "Johnny is a competitor" talk.

The best part for Johnny is, the position and opportunity is there for him to take. Whether that happens, who knows.

I do love that Johnny is hanging out with Haden. That's the kind of guy I want up his butt making sure he stays clean and hard working.

Yeah, you guys can beat up on one poster who said the article was a fluff piece and no one other than me will call you on it.

We read crap articles like this EVERY year and EVERY year you guys belittle guys like me who say we are not ready to contend yet. You call the media bozos and guys like me Negative Nancy's or Haters.

And at the end of the year, we yet again have another losing record.

The first time it happened, I actually expected an apology. It never came. The very next year, the same thing happened again. Again, the apology never came. It's happened so many times that I know that the apology for calling guys like me out will NEVER come and you guys will continue to namecall, belittle, and look down upon anyone that has questions about the Browns.

Truthfully, you guys make me gag. You get so uppity and act like anyone questioning a team that hasn't won a playoff game since the 1990's and has perhaps the worst QB situation in the NFL and has coaches and players publically saying they want out and having outside players saying they don't want to come to Cleveland because the FO is a mess and because of all the instability.............

.................And you guys wanna make fun of us?????

Get outta here w/your high and mighty, self-righteous BS!!!!

Does it hurt pinning yourself to the cross on every positive article written about the Browns?

Yeah thanks for the losing season Hoyer.

Does it make you feel good to demean a poster who has an opposing opinion?

What the hell are you even saying, Mourg?

Actually, Hoyer was 7 and 6. That is a winning record according to anyone who understands mathematics.

Manziel and Shaw were a cobined 0 and 3.

In fact, Hoyer has a record of 10 and 6 over the last two years. During that same time span, the other Brown's QBs have accumulated a record of 1 and 15.

Yeah, you should be thanking Hoyer.

You do it all the damn time. Get off your high horse. Expect out of yourself what you expect out of others. It gets old.

You go out of your way to pick a fight with just about everyone on this board and then claim to be the innocent victim who is being abused by the masses. If we want to enjoy a fluff article its our right and privilege to do so. If we wont to rip on guys like Lacanfora u know what thats fine to.

If u want to rip the article go for it but dont act like we are all ganging up on the lone pure soul who sees the browns problems.

Vers love ya Bro but damn let us enjoy positive articles about the freaking team. disagree with the article we will debate all you want but enough of the other stuff, you are better than that.

Did they get as much prctice time with the fisrt team as Hoyer?

Had Hoyer not have fallen apart there would have been no need for Manziel and Shaw to play so Yeah thanks for the LOSING SEASON Hoyer!

Vers, I'm not exactly sure why you directed that at me. I didn't single anybody out, I made a generic assessment of my liking the sound of JFF being serious while at the same time saying he should now go out and prove it. You then singled me out about beating someone up and I don't even know who you are talking about. I wasn't paying attention to who posted what in front of me and made a point of responding to the original poster.

I am glad that Haden is really starting to take a leadership role with the team. This has never been stronger than this year, as he has already taken Gilbert under his wing, and is also doing the same with Manziel. It will be interesting how they do with Haden supporting them, and guiding them .... if it makes a difference, no difference, or a huge positive difference.

I think Dansby and Whitner has had a lot to do with haden's growth and they have taught him to be more vocal and really how to be the face of the defense. They have been excellent additions and I didnt want either when we signed them lol. I was rrrraa ra ra wrong lol

I loved the Dansby signing .... so I will claim being ........ right. (for one time, anyway)

I wonder why the Defense and offense take the field at different times. This team needs to be one whole and work together. This kind of bothers me that "maybe" they won't complimentarily overcome adversity because they will act like two different entities.

It bothers me when Haden says, " I haven't seen him throw because the offense takes the field at a different time".

But I don't know anything about football practice.

There is no offense vs defense in these camps. They cannot even play non contact 11 on 11, or 7 on 7. It is not unreasonable that Haden would not have seen him throw as yet.

J/C

Okay guys, I think I've figured it out. Vers always thinks the Browns will suck. Vers is always right. Vers is sending out the negativity.

What we need is: Vers sending the positivity. He can still be right. The Browns win.

Come on Vers, make it happen. I dare you.

Whilst I like it, I'm not entirely sold that he is the all singing all dancing mentor he's made out to be. He may be, he may be not. I'd just like to point out that Hadens buddy buddy shtick with Manziel is not a new thing, they were watertight from day 1 right through when Johnnys wheels fell off.

That being said. I'm really really pulling for Johnny to

1 get his life straight which then leads to:
2 being the QB he was drafted to be.

About time we hit on one. Bad start, low odds but not outside the realms of possibility.

As for the article, of course it's fluff. Par for the course at this time of year. Keep posting them, it's an empty board with no discussion at all if you don't. It's the build up to a new season where every team is in the same place. As Pit said, hope springs eternal, and we ain't no different.

jc...

Every poster on this board is in character in this thread. LOL. We just need ddub to come and stick up for Vers and everything will be complete.

I'm not a fan of fluff pieces either, but while some of the article was a little but of fluff, I found the article in general to be fascinating, and I am surprised that some aspects of the article aren't being discussed.

--Not one mention of Farmer coming out and saying he basically 100% disagrees with how Pettine is handling Manziel? In light of everything that has happened with this team and FO this past season, why would Farmer say something like that in the media? Is this a planned good cop/bad cop type of thing going on here? Is this a healthy disagreement between GM and coach? Or is this a sign that things aren't good between GM and coach?

--Don't forget this isn't the first time this has happened in the last month. At the post draft presser Farmer basically said to Pettine's face...Pett was sitting right next to him...that he disagreed with his coach that the QB situation is "muddy at best"...a quote directly attributed to his coach. I'm sure they have disagreed about the situation to each other's face behind closed doors, but they are now doing it in the media.

--And in that post draft presser Pettine seemed awfully worn out while Farmer seemed fresh and upbeat. I thought Pettine was just tired from a long few days. Maybe there is something else going on. Maybe he's not getting what he wants and has just become resigned to it.

--Not trying to be a conspiracy theorist here. I am the captain of beating the continuity/stability drum and desparately want it to work out long term with these guys...both of these guys. But they just don't seem to be in the same page all the time. I am a little worried about that. These guys are equals, right? Both reporting up to Haslam? Is there some type of power play going on here?

--For the record, I like Pettine better than Farmer so far, but I agree with Farmer over Pettine on how to treat Manziel heading into camp. After reading this article it makes me wonder if Pett not wanting to rush Manziel has less to do with him coming out of rehab and more to do with him just not believing in Manziel. I never quite understood where Pettine was coming from on that, and I think Farmer has it right here. No babying him. Get in here and compete. Prove you belong. What Farmer seems to be getting that Pettine is missing is that babying Manziel is an awful long term strategy for the Browns.

--I like that Manziel is not talking to the media and doesn't seem to be wanting to talk either. Politicians love to talk, and he was pretty much a politician last year. Perhaps things really are pointing in the right direction for him. He doesn't seem to be itching for face time with the media.

--I like that Farmer is excited after watching Manziel throw the ball. Although it's against air, I took it as he has the ability to really spin it. And Farmer sounded genuinely excited just talking about that.

--Does is bother anyone else that these guys play a lot of basketball in the offseason? LOL. Makes me nervous as hell. Haden is always mentioning playing ball.

Pot meet Kettle...

Eo, I was laughing and thinking the exact same thing as I was reading through, and then I got to your reply.

mac, what actions can the Browns take from this point forward that will make you happy?

I'm not interested in what's already happened. But as it stands today, what would you like to see them do before the season starts? Or have you resigned yourself to the fact that there is nothing that can be done?