Bart Hubbuch is Right: The Browns Failed Johnny Manziel
By Zac Wassink
Johnny Manziel was awful this past Sunday, but the Cleveland Browns gave the rookie quarterback no chance to succeed.
Cleveland Browns rookie quarterback Johnny Manziel was downright terrible in his first ever National Football League start, a contest dominated by the Cincinnati Bengals from start to finish to the tune of 30-0. Manziel overthrew wide receivers, his mechanics were atrocious and it very much so looked like the moment that was his first NFL start was far too much for young Johnny Football to handle. It was statistically the second-worst start from a NFL quarterback of the 2014 campaign (Geno Smith of the New York Jets still sits at No. 1 on that list), leaving some to suggest that Manziel will be out of the league sooner than later.
With that said, Bart Hubbuch of the New York Post got it spot-on earlier this week when he described how the Browns set Manziel up to fail this past Sunday.
You may recall back in early November when the Browns crushed the Bengals 24-3 in front of a national Thursday Night Football television audience in Cincinnati. Cleveland punished the defense of the Bengals with a bruising rushing attack, providing a total of 48 carries to what was, at the time, a trio of running backs. Rookies Terrance West and Isaiah Crowell combined for 135 rushing yards, and Ben Tate added 34 yards on 10 carries. All three had a single touchdown run on that evening. The belief heading into last weekend’s rematch involving the two AFC North foes was that the Browns would look to establish a strong run game once more, if for no other reason than to lighten the load for a rookie quarterback who happens to be one of the most-polarizing figures in pro football.
The plan seemed to produce positive results from the start, as West picked up eight yards on Cleveland’s first two offensive plays. Then, on third-and-two, the Browns curiously emptied the backfield before Manziel carried the ball up the middle for a jaunt that finished just shy of the first-down marker. Some have suggested that a quarterback-keeper was the intended call, while others have claimed that Manziel panicked during what was supposed to be a screen pass before he reverted back to his running ways.
Either way, the play call left much to be desired. Offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan was only getting started.
With only three weeks left to go in the regular season and the Browns set to start a center who is essentially a first-year pro, a rookie quarterback and a rookie backfield, Shanahan found it wise to use midweek practice sessions to install a read-option offense heading into the Cincinnati game. The idea predictably backfired. Offensive linemen, including All-Pro Joe Thomas, didn’t know snap counts. Players lined up incorrectly. Manziel had to burn a timeout coming off of the two-minute warning because of some sort of mix-up between coaches and players.
It would appear as if Shanahan and his staff didn’t immerse themselves in Manziel’s scouting report enough to realize that the rookie is not a read-option quarterback. Manziel ran a handful of such plays during his final season at Texas A&M. Just as baffling were the option plays — that Shanahan barely allowed Manziel to get out of the pocket via designed roll-outs despite the fact that he called such plays for veteran Brian Hoyer, who is not nearly as speedy and elusive as is Manziel, throughout the season.
Experts will point to how well the Bengals schemed for Manziel during the week for why he was forced to stay within the pocket for the majority of the game. Cincinnati was well-prepared for Manziel and deserves credit for that, but it should be noted that Shanahan made life easy for the defense of the Bengals that smelled blood following Cleveland’s first offensive drive. Nobody outside of the organization can have any real idea how well Manziel would play in the actual offense of the Browns because nobody has seen him do it minus a handful of fleeting moments against the Buffalo Bills.
Say, for the sake of argument, that the reports coming out of Berea over the past couple of weeks weren’t accurate, and that taking in the occasional Cleveland Cavaliers home game really had set Manziel back to the point that he didn’t know the playbook. He never should have been sent to the slaughter if that was the case. Head coach Mike Pettine and his staff are paid handsomely, and part of their jobs is to stand up in front of reporters and be honest about those on the roster. He would have been torched by the press for doing so, but Pettine explaining that Manziel was not ready to lead the current Cleveland offense would have been best for the franchise and the rookie in such a scenario.
It is also on Pettine and company to get Manziel ready to play on Sundays.
Week 6 versus the Pittsburgh Steelers. Week 7 at the Jacksonville Jaguars. Week 10 at the Bengals. Manziel could have realistically picked up some in-game regular season action in each of those games, providing him with glimpses of what it means to lead an offense against NFL defenses without throwing him to the wolves. Perhaps Manziel would have lit a fire under Hoyer had he played a series during the Jacksonville contest as was the case when the rookie replaced the veteran for a heartbeat in Cleveland’s Week 2 victory over the New Orleans Saints. It could have been the best thing for both quarterbacks at the time.
Manziel will be heavily scrutinized past Week 17 assuming that he makes it through the final Cleveland offensive play of the campaign as the team’s quarterback. That comes with the territory when you embrace the Johnny Football persona created for you by others. Former NFL players and analysts who have struck out at Manziel’s lifestyle and how he has approached his first season in the league have joyfully broken down his poor play against Cincinnati, taking television and Twitter victory tours in the process. It’s understandable, as “Manziel flops” makes for a better headline and it generates higher page views than do stories detailing how the Browns could have better utilized a quarterback who won the Heisman Trophy as a freshman.
Those running the Browns have entered a special level of crazy-and-stupid if they believe that they can fully evaluate Manziel this holiday season. They first need to see how Manziel commits himself to the cause, if at all, during what will be his first offseason as a pro. Manziel needs more than a few weeks of reps with the first-team offense, and he deserves a real opportunity to be the starting quarterback for the team that drafted him.
The possibility exists that his critics are right, and that Manziel won’t make it in the NFL. Last Sunday’s debacle at FirstEnergy Stadium did little to prove what Manziel will be in the league. Cleveland has to either allow Manziel to take the field utilizing the playbook he has possessed since the spring months, or he has to be benched if he is not prepared to take on that task.
Anything else unnecessarily and negatively impacts Manziel and the rest of a young Cleveland offense.
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