Why Johnny Manziel Failed in the NFL- A Retrospective

[Music] if you've played competitive sports at any level then there's a good chance you've heard the old saying hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard it means that no matter who you are or how gifted you're lucky enough to be it doesn't mean a thing if you don't have enough passion to work tirelessly towards your goal it's a principle that applies to all of life not just athletics but especially looking back at the legend of Johnny Manziel whether it's set in stone or not at this point I can't help but see those words written all over the path his career as followed as one of the most electrifying and dominant players in all of college football history the man was on top of the world before his 20th birthday that amount of success at such a young age would mark his downfall before he ever had a chance to reach his peak despite being the first freshman to ever win the Heisman Trophy and a first-round draft selection he was out of the NFL entirely within just two seasons unless his career is able to somehow make a miracle comeback his legacy has already established as someone who simply couldn't handle the spotlight prioritizing drinking and partying his life away over studying game film in his off time but is that really the story or is there something beneath the narrative that we've come to accept about why Johnny Manziel failed as an NFL quarterback well today that's what I want to talk about a college football legend who fell from grace just as quickly as he rose there because of all the fascinating downfall stories in the NFL Manziel is not only the most recent but might have drawn the most media attention of all of them with his persona of Johnny football overtaking who he needed to be in order to be successful but before we get into it make sure to subscribe and share this video with your friends if you enjoy it it goes a long way toward helping this channel to grow in the future now to jump in let's take a look at how Manziel took his name from the ground all the way up into the stratosphere in just one season of college football before Johnny football was an Aggie at Texas A&M he was already established as a high school football legend the coach of the only team that beat him in his senior season was quoted as saying he's probably the best playmaker I've ever seen later also saying he was tougher to defend than Matthew Stafford and that he's Brett Favre on a motorcy now that's pretty high praise for a high school quarterback but Johnny was used to high praise he came from a long line of athletes and when he later arrived on the scene at Texas A&M his competitive fire and will to win would serve him extremely well despite his first brush with the public being on a disorderly conduct arrest Manziel quickly changed the narrative by becoming the most dominant quarterback in college football although he'd been recruited into a pro-style system under coach Mike Sherman Sherman would be fired in manziel's redshirt freshman year in order to make way for young hotshots in Kevin Sumlin and offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury who had established a scheme that would better suit the big-play tendencies of Manziel once he earned a starting role playing in Texas A&M s inaugural season in the SEC he was as successful as anyone could have hoped for and then some setting a new conference record for the most total yards in a season accumulating 5116 on his way to becoming the first freshman to ever win the Heisman Trophy he shattered just about every record that was standing for a quarterback at Texas A&M and managed to upset the number one ranked team in the country Alabama in Tuscaloosa but just rattling off accomplishments doesn't do any justice to the kind of player that Johnny Manziel was at A&M because he was just a different animal than we were accustomed to seeing out of a quarterback especially one that played in what is regarded as college football's toughest defensive conference Johnny was always at his best when the play broke down scrambling out of the pocket to either connect with a wide open man downfield or bust through the defense for a big chunk of yardage he was able to translate backyard football tactics into high-level college football in a way that both wowed you with his athleticism and made you wonder how he was able to get away with it so frequently play after play he would just Houdini his way out of pressure and then reappear past the first down marker before the defense ever seemed to have a chance to react in someone in Kingsbury's high tempo air raid attack Manziel took full advantage of the defense's inability to dedicate enough players to accounting for big plays down the field keeping the box contained and also trying to limit the threat of Mansell's legs escaping the pocket that's also without mentioning that his number one receiver was a future all-pro in Mike Evans at 6'5 his huge frame would serve to bail out Manziel on occasions where decisions were otherwise extremely ill-conceived combining an ideal system a great supporting cast and incredible athleticism and you had a recipe for a lot of yardage and a lot of this guy knows how to play quarterback so well but he doesn't even need to try and run the place correctly so he didn't and it made for one of the most fun runs in recent memory as far as highlights are concerned Manziel was a force that football just couldn't seem to contain he had six games in his freshman season where he'd rack up over 400 total yards and finished out the year by obliterating old big 12 rival Oklahoma 41 13 in the Cotton Bowl throughout the following offseason Manziel basked in his new status as the most talked-about player in the n-c-double-a his moniker of Johnny football was nearly as recognizable as the names of professional stars and despite growing off-field controversy for allegedly signing autographs for money Texas A&M came into the regular season ranked sixth in the country their roster had gotten stronger overall but there's no doubt that a good chunk of that hype was resting squarely on the shoulders of their Heisman winning quarterback Menzel's magic would continue to an extent but the sleight-of-hand tricks that had previously gotten him three yards on top of free yards didn't quite have the exact same effect on defenses that now had an entire season of tape to find counters against him with in week 3 the Aggies lost in a 40 to 49 shootout at home against Alabama while Manziel had a field day with 562 total yards he relied extremely heavily on Mike Evans and threw two interceptions that would prove to be critical in the one touchdown loss 2013 would still be another huge year for Manziel but despite an increase in passing yards from the previous season he was less effective on the ground and coming up big against ranked opponents he'd end up finishing fifth in Heisman voting and the Aggies would end their year at disappointing 8 & 4 despite high aspirations in the preseason anm did steal an incredible comeback win against Duke 52 to 48 in the chick-fil-a bowl but after that Manziel made the decision to enter into the NFL Draft despite his status as one of the most polarizing players at his position both on and off the field so here's where I want to start talking about the traits and tendencies of Manziel that would eventually end his career once he reached the NFL now these are obviously divided into two major categories his difficulties and habits on the field and his difficulties in habits off the field in talking earlier about what made Johnny Manziel so electric and unstoppable as a playmaker we talked a lot about different skills he had as an athlete he was extremely creative he was elusive and he had a knack for improvising until he found the big play but underneath those things that made him so dominant and AM lied a reinforced play style that was never going to translate to the NFL Zack shamili of strong opinion sports recently did an analysis of Johnny Manziel and in it he focused entirely on the habits he built at Texas A&M that made him a poor NFL prospect entirely independent of his off-the-field issues if you haven't checked sac out yet I'm telling you you absolutely need to his content is excellent and the amount of effort he puts into his work is always top notch every single video in his breakdown on Manziel he discusses a few different facts of Johnny's game one that he was far too ready to leave the pocket and either try to improvise or run which worked in college against college level athletes but in the NFL his elusiveness was going to be far less effective against the shirt tacklers on each team there's also the fact that he consistently fell back on what he knew best and that was the big play that would oftentimes get him into trouble and either taking unnecessary sacks or throwing up jump balls that should have never been thrown in the first place however a lot of those would end up going in his favor by either luck or the fact that his top target would end up becoming one of the most reliable jump ball receivers in the entire NFL if you're interested in checking out Zach's full analysis I'll leave a link down in the description but I also want to discuss some other aspects related to Johnny's game that I believe played a huge role in his rise and fall as a player for starters in watching and play at a.m. it's pretty clear that he relied almost entirely on his athleticism to get the job done he didn't want to try and stand in the pocket and deliver a strike to his second or third read in fact it was a common tendency of Manziel to look straight to his first read and if it wasn't there he'd immediately try to leave the pocket and introduce some chaos into the play but as a result of that renegade style his mechanics were below average often relying solely on his arm to make throws rather than setting his feet and driving the ball to his target while it's difficult to outright say that Manziel was a product of the system at Texas A&M with all of his creativity and ability it's certainly true that the wide open spread formations of Kingsbury's offense and wider college hash marks providing huge amounts of field to work with benefited his wild production both aspects that weren't gonna be present at the next level as I talked about in my video on Patrick mahomes last week air raid systems are traditionally the easiest for a quarterback to make plays from with a variety of quick reads and open formations that never forced Manziel to really decode defenses in order to beat them on the field he was a player who didn't have the fundamentals or desire to succeed as a pocket passer but the legend that he'd cultivated since high school and that the media had continued to reinforce taught him one thing that he could always do whatever he wanted while that's a damaging enough attitude to adopt while playing it's an even worse one to have after you leave the field one thing that's always played Johnny manziel's career was his inability to treat football as anything more than just a game for fun he loved playing it and he loved being great at it but he never seemed to have the obsession for his craft that is absolutely necessary for those who make it in the NFL now the media was infamous for dogpiling on Manziel at the drop of a hat whenever he'd do something and that was wrong but he was also never able to stop giving them things - dogpile on him about whether it was his arrest before his freshman season missing meetings at the Manning passing Academy that would result in him getting dismissed him getting kicked out of a frat party or the overblown autographed scandal that would get him suspended for the first half of a Em's opening game Johnny Manziel just couldn't seem to avoid the headlines but for the majority of his college career and even extending into the NFL it seemed like he didn't really want to the trappings of Fame and success were something that Manziel had fully embraced between the money sign he became famous for trademarking the name Johnny football and the constant partying and drinking that made him seem like the most quintessential college football player of all time so if we were to sum up his profile heading into the draft he had two explosive years in college and a dedicated passing scheme where his creativity and athleticism were able to shine but he was also under sized he had inconsistent accuracy and arm strength he made dangerous decisions he had questionable work ethic he had some injury concerns and last but not least he possessed a deep love for partying and fame it's clear the book Manziel really needed was a team with a strong support system to draft him in the mid to late rounds and spend years coaching him out of his bad habits and into the ones that all great NFL quarterbacks have but instead of being drafted late to a team that could fix the plethora of concerns that he came with he was drafted early by the most notorious dumpster fire in the league on the night of the 2014 NFL Draft the night that genuinely marked the beginning of the end for Johnny Manziel he was drafted 22nd overall in the first round to the Cleveland Browns trying to break down Manziel run with Cleveland is equal parts depressing and infuriating right off the bat his partying didn't stop or even slow down if anything it probably increased I mean he had just been validated as a first-round talans and told reporters during the offseason that he wasn't about to change who he was for anybody to save some time on how the browns handled all of his off-the-field antics they just didn't and so his aura of fame followed him straight into the league and in no time his Jersey was the highest-selling on nfl.com the Jersey sales don't make you a great quarterback and behind the scenes the Browns quarterback room was one of the most volatile and unstable environments in the entire league and not to spoil things but it didn't quite work out for Johnny football sorry skip in a 2018 interview with Dan Patrick Manziel later talked about how he entered the NFL and the shell shock of his style not translating he had never had a need to study film or work hard for his success it was all delivered on a platter accompanied by massive praise and cheers from the crowd but in the NFL success is not only something you have to seek out but give everything you have both physically and mentally in order to find it somehow though Manziel said he didn't get the memo on that and that he'd never needed to take the time to understand the X's and O's that make football into such a chess game at higher levels and either no one in Cleveland was willing to help him understand or they didn't want to because the switch from A&M spread into Cleveland's condensed and complex pro style system left Manziel entirely in the dust but it isn't like he was the victim either over 20 sources within the organization questioned his work ethic including former teammate Nate Burleson who discussed how Manziel hardly ever studied the playbook on weekends in favor of continuing his social life something coaches knew as they tracked the iPads given out to the team in Manziel 'he's first NFL start late in his rookie season far before he was ever ready to step onto the field the Cincinnati Bengals absolutely decimated him holding into just 80 yards passing and forcing two interceptions on the day it proved that Manziel was not only unprepared for the next level but that he'd become a target for other teams someone who the opposition wanted to embarrass over and over again he ended the season with a hamstring injury after two starts and was now facing failure as a player who had never failed at any level of the game he hated it but instead of trying to put his head down and prove his doubters wrong he retreated to what had always been comfortable to him the parties and fame that his success had already brought to his doorstep he decided to try and move on from that tendency by entering rehab the following January but things were only going to continue to spiral downward the regular season began cleveland began their year with Manziel as the backup to Josh McCown despite improved play for Manziel as a result of McCown really trying to help Manziel grow as a player there were flashes in both practice and in games but in truth Manziel still wasn't able to consistently deliver at a high level with his playing style while at A&M he had been able to easily slip out of the pocket in order to get into his comfort zone NFL linemen closed off the edge and wrapped him up in situations where he had been able to evade defenders back in college but even still he received another second chance in a very long line of second chances as josh mccown would face injury trouble and Manziel would start six games throughout the rest of the regular season but even on his best day the team around him could barely compete and on his worst days they didn't even stand a chance he threw for a total of 1,500 yards seven touchdowns and five interceptions with a two and four record as a starter not the worst ever but not even close to what you'd expect from a second-year first-round pick not only did Manziel struggled to stay consistent on the field but off the field controversy never seemed to leave his side for too long that October he'd be investigated for a domestic dispute and though the league never suspended Manziel it continued to be a distraction in and around the team additionally video surfaced of him partying during the team's bye week and after being ruled out in the season's final game he was spotted partying again the night before this clearly showed that no matter what wake-up calls he had received from the team or on the field nothing clicked in Manziel 's head to make him give up the lifestyle of the rich and famous and really focus on the game that had brought him all of it a chain of domestic violence allegations that surfaced in the coming weeks would be the final straw for the Browns and since his release Manziel has not been part of an NFL roster and most likely never will be again in a time span ranging from weeks to months Manziel was dropped by his marketing team his major sponsorships and not one but two agents in the worst place of his life at only 23 he turned back to that temporary lifestyle of drugs and alcohol but despite the dark place that Manziel reached since that time there's at least been hope for him to return from it for his own sake regardless of whether he ever makes it back to the NFL in the years that have followed since that period of time he's since been attempting to place himself on a trajectory to make a comeback first by completing the necessary requirements to dismiss his assault charges and then playing stints in the CFL and AAF that range from abysmal to mediocre just in order to get back into playing football now that the AAF has disbanded though Manziel has again been left without a job although at least this time it was due to circumstances that were beyond his control as for his future he's now looking into being part of the upcoming revamp version of the XFL and there's certainly no doubt that if he is part of a roster he'll again draw eyes to his name as he has for his entire career thus far if you were to ask me whether Johnny Manziel has ever had what it takes to make it in the NFL I'd have to give you a pretty straightforward answer despite his height being undersized for the league I think there's no doubt that his athletic gifts could have been utilized properly if he had evolved his game from college to the pros but unfortunately for Manziel his strategy of just winging it was never gonna pan out and when it didn't the meltdown that followed demonstrated more than anything that he was never ready to handle the bright lights of the NFL in the first place over the course of his career he reached the status of an untouchable figure and became content with living only for himself in the moment and not thinking about whether that status would ever run out but unfortunately for Johnny Manziel it did because as the saying goes hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard

Channel: Set the Edge

Views: 496,282

Rating: 4.8513122 out of 5

Keywords: johnny manziel, why johnny manziel failed, why is johnny manziel not in the nfl, johnny manziel highlights, johnny manziel story, johnny manziel alabama, johnny manziel aaf, johnny manziel money, set the edge, johnny manziel autograph, johnny manziel comeback, johnny manziel xfl, johnny manziel texas a&m highlights, johnny manziel heisman, johnny manziel downfall, johnny football, johnny football highlights, johnny football vs alabama, johnny manziel collapse, john manziel

Id: kSnzcPXndVc

Length: 17min 0sec (1020 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 21 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/intheorydp]

AL-CO-HOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[u/KappKapp]

Zero effort, poor NFL skill set, couldn’t control himself.

That was easy

[u/O_the_Scientist]

He didn't care.

Saved you 16:59

[u/averageguy8888]

With JFF's tools, he wudda needed to be a bigger gym rat than the SF Mullins kid to succeed. But nope, JFF was a big punk who ganked Haslam for his money by promising he'd be a good boy. lol

[u/Raiichu_LoL]

Wish I could have been a student at TAMU during the 2012 season that would have been so much fun.
Although the LSU TAMU game last year was fucking amazing and is my number one sports fandom moment.

[u/Donaldisinthehouse]

Because he is a douche