Kliff Kingsbury: Johnny Manziel ‘wants to be the best to ever play the game’
By Mike Dyce
Texas A&M quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel is one of the most interesting players looking ahead to the 2014 NFL Draft in May. On one hand he is a dynamic player who can make plays with his arm and his feet, on the other he has a history of off-field incidents calling into question his maturity.
Texas Tech head coach Kliff Kingsbury, who coached Manziel at A&M, said any NFL team questioning his character just needs to talk to Manziel’s teammates.
“I think the thing you have to do is ask his teammates, ‘how did they enjoy playing with him?’ … The kids I was around on that team, they would all run through a wall for the kid, and I think that’s the greatest testament to what he’s about to the game of football,” Kingsbury said, via the Dallas Morning News. “I’m sure there’s things that he regrets that he would like to do differently, but at 20-years-old you’re the Heisman trophy winner at a school that has that much attention on its high-profile players — I just think some of those were honest mistakes and part of the growing process. And so being around him, he’s the most competitive kid I’ve ever seen.
“He wants to be great, first and foremost — he wants to be the best to ever play the game. So as an owner or a GM those are inherent traits that you want in one of those top picks.”