Browns head coach Mike Pettine has left a trail, and it does not favor Johnny Manziel.
 
That Pettine would pick Josh McCown to start over Manziel at quarterback against the Oakland Raiders on Sunday, especially after the latter’s late-game performance last Sunday in a 28-14 win over the Tennessee Titans, is quite puzzling at first glance. Then it becomes a lot less so after you think about it a little more and connect the dots..
 
Remember Pettine’s press conference late last season when he announced that he was benching Brian Hoyer in favor of Manziel? The coach’s “endorsement” of Manziel was about not compelling at all. It did not even raise to the level of being half-hearted. He said nothing at all in favor of Manziel, only that he was making the move.
 
It was as if he had, in essence, a gun to his head, and perhaps he did.
 
It appears then, as now, that Manziel was never Pettine’s guy, and won’t ever be his guy. The coach didn’t want Manziel when the Browns took him in the first round of the 2014 NFL Draft, and he doesn’t want him now.
 
Manziel was the pick of General Manager Ray Farmer or team owner Jimmy Haslam, or some combination thereof. Pettine made the change last year only after he was pressured to do so by Farmer and Haslam, a BMOC on the University of Tennessee campus who became smitten with Manziel after watching him in the SEC.
 
So, with Farmer out of the picture now as he serves a four-game suspension for his involvement in Textgate, Pettine had no one pushing him to keep Manziel in the lineup against Oakland. The texts being sent down to the sideline on gamedays to an unspecified person last year were to try to force Pettine to play Manziel. Pettine resisted Farmer’s back-door approach to try to usurp his authority as a coach. In fact, the more Farmer pushed, the more Pettine pushed back.
 
Considering all that, then, McCown is going to have to play really poorly for a long period of time, or get hurt, before Pettine would go to Manziel. And even then, he would only do so grudgingly.
 
Thus, for those who think Manziel will be given the job sooner rather than later, think again. It’s not happening as long Pettine is coach and he thinks his GM and owner are trying to shove the quarterback down his throat.
 
So keep that image in your mind of Johnny Football deftly sidestepping the rush and throwing the 50-yard game-clinching touchdown pass to wide receiver Travis Benjamin late in the fourth quarter against Tennessee. It could be the last time you see him in a game for a long, long time.