Johnny Manziel to get snaps for Cleveland Browns in opener?
Brian Hoyer is starting at quarterback in the regular season opener for the Cleveland Browns over Johnny Manziel, but Browns head coach Mike Pettine is not discounting the possibility of Manziel playing in the opener against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
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“It’s something we’ll discuss,” Pettine told reporters after the team’s preseason finale, via Cleveland.com. “I don’t know if that’s necessarily something just because of tonight. We’ll have discussions on how we want to game plan and how we want to use those guys. I think one of the reasons that Brian (Hoyer) and the first team did look better tonight is because we didn’t mix the reps and he got all the reps with the No. 1s. A big part of tonight was getting those guys playing together and getting that cohesion.”
Manziel has been up and down in the preseason with some rookie mistakes you would expect in the preseason and also showed some of the skills that made him a first round draft pick last May.
Based on Pettine’s comments about cohesion and how well Hoyer and the first team looked against the Chicago Bears in the preseason win on Thursday evening tells me that Manziel wouldn’t be a big part of the gameplan.
It is important to have cohesion and chemistry so the offense can run efficiently and effectively and you need to have a quarterback playing with confidence and not looking over his shoulder to see if the backup is coming in on every bad play.
Having said that, he was drafted in the first round for a reason and the coaches will want to see what he can do in a real game, so a few snaps throughout the game to provide a spark will be something that bears watching.