Former QB Johnny Manziel and Steelers fans have at least one thing in common: they both hate the Cleveland Browns. Once drafted by Cleveland in the first round, he has no love lost for his former employer. While he doesn’t blame them entirely for his failure in the NFL, he believes they did not help him.
Manziel recently appeared on the Nightcap podcast and talked about his time with the Browns. He discussed the hype with which he entered the league, and how that colored the expectations around him.
“I sit here today and I’m like, ‘Fuck it, I think I’m going to be pissed at them and hate them forever’”, Michael Davis Smith of Pro Football Talk transcribed of Manziel recalling his time with the Browns. “So, it is what it is, man. No love for the Browns, I’m rooting for 0-16 seasons every season”.
Shrewd, savvy fan that you are, you immediately picked up on the fact that there are 17 games. Rather than assuming Johnny Manziel is implying the Browns will become so bad that the NFL will begin making them forfeit their final game in order to spare fans the misery of watching an 0-16 Browns team lose to the Bengals’ practice squad, there is, of course, a simpler explanation. Manziel last played in 2015, long before the adoption of the 17-game schedule. I sense that he doesn’t pay too much close attention to the details of the league since he last played.
The 22nd-overall pick in the 2014 NFL Draft, Johnny Manziel only started eight games for the Browns. He only lasted two seasons, posting a 2-6 record. Playing for Cleveland, of course, he can only shoulder so much of the blame for the bad record. But needless to say, he didn’t play particularly well with a 7-7 touchdown-to-interception ratio.
For those unfamiliar or who have forgotten, Manziel struggled with off-field issues, clearly immature and complicated by substance abuse—particularly alcohol. At one point while with the Browns, he faced a suspension for his alcohol abuse, eventually attempting suicide. After his playing career, he received a diagnosis for bipolar disorder, attribution his substance abuse to self-medication. But he also wasn’t a very good NFL quarterback, and he knows it, even if he believes the Browns did him no favors.
“Was Cleveland the best situation for me to go to? Did they help me, knowing all the things they knew about me, with all the research and everything, did they put me in the best situation? Absolutely not”, Manziel said of his Browns career. “But when it comes down to it”, he added, “you look in the mirror and you say, I let an amazing opportunity slip. It’s on me”.
The Browns also threw away another former first-round quarterback with perceived maturity issues, so Johnny Manziel has at least that in common with Baker Mayfield. Mayfield, however, has gone on to rejuvenate his career in Tampa Bay. To his credit, he continued to pursue football, playing in the CFL, AAF, and FCF as recently as 2022. He even thought about trying to play in the NFL again after all that.
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