NFL Training Camp: Top 5 position battles around the league

1. Cleveland Browns, Johnny Football vs. Hometown Hoyer

It’s time for football, Johnny.

Johnny Manziel’s preseason debut will likely come in Week 1 against the Lions, but it won’t come as the Browns starting quarterback. Cleveland coach Mike Pettine said this week that Brian Hoyer will be the starter for the Browns in their Aug. 9 preseason opener at Detroit.

"“Brian will start the first preseason game if nothing else changes,” Pettine told ESPNCleveland.com. “There’s plenty of time in there, daily updates staff-wise, to decide then how we want to [proceed]. There’s a lot of different ways it can play out.”"

The fact that Manziel might not start in Week 1 of the preseason shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. What is kind of surprising though is that Pettine wouldn’t even commit to Johnny Football being the starter for Week 2 of the preseason.

"“I haven’t made that decision,” Pettine said. “That will have to be earned.”"

Back in May, hours after the Browns selected Manziel 22nd overall, Hoyer welcomed the competition, saying “Bring it on.”

"“Everybody in America knew we were going to draft a quarterback,” Hoyer said at the time. “I’ve said a million times, I have all the confidence in the world in myself. So we’ll just see how it plays out.”"

Hoyer looked every bit the legit NFL quarterback in three starts last season before suffering an ACL injury. However, he could be fighting an up hill battle in Cleveland. Browns fans will be calling relentlessly for Manziel and Manziel has already said he “absolutely” expect to win the job.

It’s hard to say just how much of a battle Hoyer vs. Manziel will be over the next four-plus weeks given that the team’s plan calls for Hoyer to get the first-team reps — and Manziel may or may not have squeezed in a couple actual football workouts between vacations over the last four weeks, but it’s going to be good.

Game on.