Browns head coach Mike Pettine says he’s not interested in playing Johnny Manziel just to see if he’s the franchise quarterback the team has so desperately sought since it returned to the field in 1999.
 
He said he’s focused only on trying to use the players who give the Browns the best chance to win right now, not in 2016 and ’17, etc.
 
That’s understandable, for if Pettine doesn’t win enough games this season, it will be someone else coaching the club next year.
 
That’s why he should play Manziel now and name him the starter for Sunday’s game against the Oakland Raiders at FirstEnergy Stadium and beyond, regardless of whether Josh McCown passes his concussion protocol and is cleared to play.
 
Why play Manziel instead of McCown? Why is he better equipped to help the Browns win this year?
 
The proof is in the pudding with the play Manziel made to seal last Sunday’s 28-14 victory over the Tennessee Titans. Facing a third-and-six situation at the 50 late in the fourth quarter and with his team, leading 21-14, needing to get at least a first down to continue bleeding the clock, Manziel did one better. He neatly sidestepped a rusher and delivered a touchdown pass to a streaking Travis Benjamin.
 
It was the huge play the Browns needed to make.
 
It was the huge play the Browns have seldom made in the expansion era.
 
It was the kind of exciting, pivotal play that can jump-start a team for not just that day or for the following week, but also for a lot of weeks to come.
 
And it’s also the kind of play that McCown, an aging veteran with limited athleticism and escapability, could never make in a million years.
 
Indeed, if McCown had been playing, he would have gotten sacked and the Browns would have been forced to punt the ball away and hope that their defense, which had been wearing down badly in the second half, could somehow halt the Titans and keep them from scoring a touchdown and tying the game at 21-21.
 
So if Pettine wants to win games, he needs a playmaker at the most important position on the field. Is Manziel that playmaker? Is he for certain that playmaker?
 
We don’t know the answer to that yet. What we do know is that Manziel displayed playmaking qualities last Sunday when the game was on the line. It doesn’t get any better than that.
 
He needs a chance to try to do it again. He is the only quarterback the Browns have who has that capability. As such, he is the one who should be on the field if winning is the goal.