Here’s the fallout from the Browns demoting quarterback Johnny Manziel to third string on Tuesday after a party video surfaced:
*Aside from the obvious in that Manziel has blown a golden opportunity to start long-term in the NFL and thus fulfill a dream he has had since he was a kid, he may have also really messed himself in Cleveland for next year. It’s likely that both General Manager Ray Farmer and Mike Pettine will be fired at the end of the season. As such, their replacements will have nothing invested in the scouting, drafting and nurturing of Manziel. He’s just another player to them, and if they think he can’t help them, then they’ll waste absolutely no time in getting rid of him.
*Pettine was always wary about playing Manziel. The guess is that he was pressured into announcing him as the starter for the rest of the season following the Browns’ last game in Pittsburgh a week and a half ago. So chalk one up for Pettine. He knew all along what a real knucklehead this kid was.
*Remember how Farmer was sweating profusely at his press conference a while back? You’ve got to believe he’s sweating even more now. After all, how could the Browns, led by Farmer and his scouts, not know about Manziel’s partying problem and irresponsibility? And if they did know it and Farmer still drafted Manziel, that’s even worse. Using a first-round draft choice on someone like that is like buying an expensive car when you know it has a cracked frame. It’s doomed to fail. If Farmer had any chance to save his job, then this may well have killed it. But don’t blame Manziel for all this as much as you need to blame the guy who brought him here. That would be the pompous, condescending Ray Farmer. What a piece of work – what a buffoon – he is, and this is yet another piece of evidence, and a substantial one as that.
*If you’re Browns owner Jimmy Haslam, then you’ve got to be beside yourself. The Browns are 2-8 and have lost five in a row. They had to fire offensive line coach Andy Moeller because he couldn’t behave himself. They benched Manziel, the No. 22 overall pick in the 2014 NFL Draft, because he couldn’t behave himself. Farmer was suspended for the first four games this season because he couldn’t behave himself. Haslam and his team are being made to look bad – horrible, really — because of the actions of these people. When you bring in bad people, bad things happen. Imagine that?
*So much for the allure of Manziel and how it would pump up the atmosphere of an otherwise dull Monday Night Football game between the Browns and Baltimore Ravens in six days.
*Give quarterback Josh McCown a lot of credit. He’s a team man first and foremost, and he’s here when the Browns need him to start on Monday. The Browns need a team full of players with his kind of class, selflessness and work ethic.
*Now it’s official: Since Manziel is not the guy, the Browns are now officially in the market again for a franchise quarterback. Start the draft talk. And it’s not even Thanksgiving.
*And finally, it’s the fans who are getting shafted the most. They worked like crazy to get a new Browns team after the original one left for Baltimore, and this is how they’re rewarded. Amazing. They deserve so much better.
