Johnny Manziel: The villain we love
By Josh Planos
Phase No. 9: Wait for the Fallout
This is not the way you wanted it to turn out.
In the aftermath of the draft, New England’s scouting report is released. Sources state what you’ve wanted wanted to say all along.
He’s a spoiled brat. He has an allowance. He has outlaw bloodlines that are the root of his personality.
You check the computer to find that a text message Manziel sent to the Browns on draft night leaked, too.
“I wish you guys would come get me. Hurry up and draft me because I want to wreck this league together.”
Phase No. 10: Draft a Holistic Identity
You start to reevaluate your perception.
This country seems to take a particularly savage joy in eating its young. We deify and crush them in the same breath. Manziel is being eaten alive figuratively. His twenty-first-century privilege paint him darker than the oil his grandfather siphoned.
A month prior to the draft, Hall of Fame cornerback Deion Sanders claimed Manziel has a trait that crosses pre-conceived barriers.
"I love Johnny Football. See, the reason people won’t accept Johnny Football is because Johnny Football has ghetto tendencies. Because he was successful, he made it, and he let you all know he made it, and he was cocky, he was flamboyant, and he let you know."
It’s true that Manziel is a showman, and he has a flare unrivaled by most. But people aren’t afraid that he has these tendencies, they’re sad he cannot be their superman. He is continually trying to tailor his true measurements while dressing his mind accordingly.
Johnny Manziel is easy to disparage. He’s a media punching bag and he’s simply graduated from college to professional in that regard.
Johnny Manziel is easy to disparage. He’s a media punching bag and he’s simply graduated from college to professional in that regard. He drinks and is short-tempered. The personification of a boy with an all-too-typical privileged demeanor. A cash cow we are willing break if that’s what will get the money out.
You think about all of this. You consider how oppression, like privilege, is a construct, and can be bent in a myriad of ways. You finally realize what you have to do, and then you begin typing it.