Johnny Manziel: I Won’t Use The Rookie Excuse

Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel had a poor performance in his first NFL start, but he does not plan on using the rookie excuse.

On Sunday afternoon, the Johnny Manziel experiment began with a disastrous performance from the rookie quarterback in a 30-0 rout by the Cincinnati Bengals.

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Browns head coach Mike Pettine credited Manziel’s performance — 10-of-18 for 80 yards and 2 interceptions — to the first-round pick being a rookie in his first start, but Manziel was not ready to use that excuse.

Rather than simply stating he “played like a rookie,” Manziel took responsibility for his poor performance and said that he needs to do better.

“It’s tough to come out there and lay an egg like that and I put a lot of that on me,” Manziel said, via the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “I’m not using the rookie excuse – it’s not me. Yeah, I’m a rookie but that’s out the window. I needed to play better.

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“I felt coming in to today that I was absolutely prepared for today. Being out there, I never felt overwhelmed or that it was too much for me, but when it comes down to it, football is football. You need to make more plays than the other team and we didn’t do that.”

It is just one poor performance for Manziel and you can not project his future success based on his first career start, but it is now clear that he has plenty of work to do.

With the Browns now falling back in the AFC Wild Card race, the last two weeks of the season may prove to give Manziel some of the valuable reps that he will need to continue developing.

Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel had a poor performance in his first NFL start, but he does not plan on using the rookie excuse.

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