Cleveland Browns offseason practices are only a few weeks old, and running back Ben Tate already thinks the attention paid to quarterback Johnny Manziel is excessive.
Things started over the weekend when Tate had this to say about his new teammate to USA Today.
“He had success early in his career when he was at (Texas) A&M. He won the Heisman or whatever, but there are lots of people that have won the Heisman. I mean, Mark Ingram won the Heisman, and I don’t see everyone all excited when he got to the league.”
Tate also said that the Browns are Brian Hoyer’s team until things change.
The backlash for Tate’s comments led the running back to try clarifying his position via Twitter Monday.
And for ppl trying to say I dissed Johnny I got 1 finger up to yall and it's not my pointer. My point was I'm sure he is tired of it all
— Ben Tate (@BenTateRB) June 3, 2014
And just wants to be left alone to play football y'all too worried about what he does in his everyday life that's all I was saying
— Ben Tate (@BenTateRB) June 3, 2014
Tate gave more comments about Manziel after practice on Tuesday and explained that he thinks all the attention Manziel faces must be annoying.
“It’s not really sympathy, it’s just as a player I know I would get tired if people were monitoring if I picked my nose, if I spit to the left or right,” Tate said Tuesday via Cleveland.com. “It’s annoying. He’s a human being. He’s a great football player. I get why he gets the constant media attention. I just think he wants to come in here and do his job and try to win the starting quarterback position.”
Rather than Tate being annoyed with Manziel, it seems like Tate is really just annoyed with the media for hounding Manziel. The problem is many players can’t separate their dislike of the attention a player receives with the dislike of a player. All the attention ends up causing resentment and sometimes leads to a player being disliked because he is a media magnet. Hopefully that won’t happen with Manziel in Cleveland. As long as he plays well for the Browns, it probably won’t.
