Mike Evans wants Johnny Manziel to start in 2015

Johnny Manziel is not done in the NFL according to Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Mike Evans.

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Current Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Mike Evans thinks that Johnny Manziel is not only nowhere near being done in the NFL, but he should be the Browns number one starter from the very beginning of the season. Evans played with Johnny Manziel at Texas A&M and he clearly holds a strong loyalty to the Heisman winner. He thinks the Browns not only should not give up on Manziel, but they need to commit to him as the starter from the beginning.

“When he starts the season off, he’ll be good,” Evans said via TMZ.

Evans isn’t the only one, believe it or not. Browns cornerback Joe Haden also said that Manziel is not a joke, despite what the media and others on his own team may say about the rookie quarterback. He further named two other players in defensive lineman Phil Taylor and wide receiver Travis Benjamin as more voices that think Manziel still has a future.

“Johnny takes too much bashing for nothing and the thing is that being a quarterback in the NFL is so much harder,” Haden said, via Cleveland.com. “They can’t do anything. If Johnny is to do anything that shows him having fun instead of being in the meeting room, they blow him up.”

He has a point, of course. The quarterback is always the face of the team and what they do on their off-time often almost seems as important as what they do on the field. Just look at the criticism on 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and his tattoos and terse media conferences. He couldn’t even keep the latter up, eventually caving to the pressure of having to represent his team at the podium. On the other side of things, Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch receives no problem from the team for avoiding the media. You can’t begin to argue that the same would be tolerated out of Russell Wilson.

Browns linebacker Karlos Dansby eschewed being anonymous to discuss Manziel. He has criticized him publicly in the past, but has also backed off from criticism of the rookie quarterback at practice, saying instead that he’s helped the defense be better. He also thinks, as does Evans, that Manziel will get better going into his second season.

[H/T: Pro Football Talk]

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