Browns player on Manziel: "100 percent joke"

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‘100 percent joke': Manziel confirmed Browns’ worst fears



By Brian Lewis

January 23, 2015 | 4:43pm



Reports out of Cleveland question Johnny Manziel’s maturity, preparation and work ethic, claiming he’s more committed to nightlife than to the NFL.

One player told ESPN that, throughout the entire 2014 season, Manziel was “100 percent joke.” But it turns out the joke is on the Browns, only they’re not laughing.

ESPN.com spoke with almost 20 Browns sources, and other league personnel sources for a damning story on the hard-partying quarterback. The same story kept cropping up, that Johnny Football wasn’t ready and prepared when he got his first start against in-state rival Cincinnati, and that his lifestyle clearly hurt his play.



Manziel got drafted No. 22 overall, giving his ubiquitous “money” sign on draft night as he sauntered upstage to meet NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. The pick nearly broke Twitter with breathless gushing; but now Cleveland’s quarterback situation is broken, with the Browns’ owner and front office clearly not sold.


“We’ve got to get a quarterback and got to get it fixed,” Browns owner Jimmy Haslam said Thursday night at a greater Cleveland sports award dinner.

“We’re not sure if our starting quarterback is in the building or not,” new offensive coordinator John DeFilippo said Thursday. “If he is, great. If he isn’t, great too.’’

That DeFilippo has the job should tell you a little something about how things went offensively in Cleveland. Offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan resigned with two years left on his deal, and quarterbacks coach Dowell Loggains got fired.


When the team turned to Manziel as a starter, he was awful in nearly six quarters and got fined for going AWOL on the last Saturday of the season when he was supposed to be receiving treatment on his hamstring.


Manziel was actually absent the morning before the Dec. 28 season finale at the Ravens, so off the grid as the Browns were packing up to head to Baltimore that team security had to drive to his house to check on him. When they finally found him, two team sources told ESPN that security though he’d partied hard the night before, and one defined him as “drunk off his a–.’’

While the Browns labeled him as late, players said he wasn’t there at all in the morning and they never saw him until the charter was getting ready to take off in the afternoon. He sat in the locker room during the game, with one source summing up “Johnny’s his own worst enemy.’’

Manziel texted Loggains on draft night saying he was going to “wreck this league” in Cleveland. But now more than one of his teammates joked with ESPN that the text should’ve said “wreck this team.’’



Yes, it’s that bad.