Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron would not address a report that said he tried to wake up an oversleeping Johnny Manziel at the Manning Passing Academy last weekend because the Crimson Tide QB said he did not want to get into another player’s business. But in the process of explaining why he would not comment on the report, McCarron, speaking from SEC Media Day on Thursday, outlined some of the differences between him and, say, a guy like Manziel.
“I can’t answer on Johnny Manziel’s part,” McCarron responded when asked about the report. “My name’s A.J. Everything that has to do with him, he’s his own man. I’m not going to speak on another man’s business. That’s how I was raised. If it don’t have nothing to do with you, don’t speak of it.”
McCarron then discussed how he takes pride in avoiding negative headlines.
“The one thing you can say throughout my career you can never bash me for is I never brought any type of negative spotlight on my last name or my university or my head coach or my teammates. I’ve always done the right thing, I’ve always done it how it’s supposed to be done. That’s the way I want to be remembered.
“I don’t want to be remembered as some guy that was an off-the-wall type guy doing all this crazy stuff. That’s not me. My job is playing football, not being a celebrity off the field.”
McCarron didn’t mention any names when describing how he doesn’t want to be remembered, but it’s pretty obvious he was contrasting himself with Manziel. Johnny Football has gotten into trouble off the field. Manziel is considered a celebrity off the field. He’s brought negative attention to his school and team. Whether he intended to or not, McCarron just showed all the ways he differs from Manziel, even if the two are friends.
About the only negative headlines McCarron has been involved in at Bama came when he got into a Twitter beef with Tyrann Mathieu, and when the media blew it out of proportion that he got a boot put on his car. That’s not bad.
In many ways, McCarron is actually the ideal Nick Saban player. Look at the way he answered some questions at SEC Media Day:
If Saban got to hear McCarron talk, he probably would have been beaming.
