Sunday, Aug. 23 (AM) – It will be the dress rehearsal for the regular season on Saturday night when the Browns travel to Tampa Bay to play the Buccaneers in the third preseason game of the year.

But it will be much more than that for quarterback Johnny Manziel, specifically, and for the Browns in general. What happens that evening will reveal a lot to both of them.

Manziel is getting better every game – every practice, really – and is solidly entrenched as the No. 2 behind Josh McCown. After having had a horrible rookie season in 2014, a dysfunctional offseason in which he went into rehab and then a nightmarish opening day of training camp when he had Spergon Wynn Disease, Manziel has taken a quantum leap forward to get to where he is now.

The Browns are hoping he continues that meteoric rise and as such proves to them sometime this season that he can be the franchise passer they envisioned him to be when they traded up in the 2014 NFL Draft to select him at No. 22 overall.

Saturday’s game certainly won’t reveal whether Manziel is there yet. It would be ludicrous to think there’s even a possibility of that happening. That has to play out down the road.

However, the game is still tremendously significant in that it will provide Manziel with his final legitimate opportunity to show what he can do.

Yes, there’s another game the following Thursday night when the Browns visit the Chicago Bears in the preseason finale, but that will be a non-factor. All the starters – all the principal players, actually – on both sides will not play. The only thing the game will determine is the spots at the bottom of the roster.

After that contest, the Browns’ focus will turn entirely to the beginning of the regular season – it has already done so in many regards – and getting all the starters ready for the Sept. 13 opener against the New York Jets. As part of that process, McCown will begin getting most of the reps in practice then. Manziel will stand on the side and prepare mentally as if he’s the starter since he’s just one play away from being in there, but the opportunities to get onto the field and physically do it during practice will be few and far between.

And it should be noted that McCown’s presence with the first-teamers may be even moreso than usual because of all the injuries that have kept some of the key players off the field. He needs to work with those guys, and there is a lot of catching up to do in a relatively short amount of time.

So for a while at least, Saturday will be Johnny Football’s last planned hurrah. With that, then, you can bet he will pull out all the stops to make it special.

Manziel would never say this for obvious reasons, but there’s no doubt that he smells blood in the water. With two interceptions, McCown did not exactly look like the second coming of Bernie Kosar in last Thursday night’s 11-10 loss to the Buffalo Bills. It was not enough to dislodge him as the starter, nor will his play on Saturday, regardless of what it is.

However, keep in mind that, in facing the Jets, Tennessee Titans and Oakland Raiders, the schedule is set up for the Browns to get off to a fast start. If they do, then McCown is safe, even if he’s just OK. But if the Browns stumble and he also struggles, then the leash on him will start to tighten up.

The Browns outbid Buffalo to sign McCown in free agency, so they will give him every opportunity to succeed and be the bridge to their franchise guy. But they wouldn’t let him be mediocre forever if the team begins to slide. The coaches would do what they needed to do to save the season, and as part of that save their own jobs.

And if Manziel on Saturday puts an exclamation point behind his other good work over the past several weeks, it could convince head coach Mike Pettine to make a change sooner rather than later.

Remember, this season is not about McCown. It’s all about Manziel and seeing if he can be the guy.

So take it away, Johnny, on Saturday. We’ll all be watching with great interest, for it could – not will, but could – be a sign of things to come for the Browns, who, in the 17th season of the expansion era, are still trying to find their franchise quarterback. The team has to figure that out before it even thinks of being a playoff contender.