Johnny Manziel’s NFL career has long passed, and the former quarterback admits he has some regrets over the way things went down.
Johnny Football was taken No. 22 overall by the Cleveland Browns in the 2014 NFL Draft. He started two games that season and lost both of them. He went 2-4 the following season and passed for 1,500 yards, seven touchdowns and five interceptions. The biggest issue with Manziel was that fame and attitude got the best of him. He just didn’t work hard or care about his NFL career, so it’s no surprise it ended after just two years.
Manziel also had substance abuse issues and entered rehab. He had a serious domestic incident with his girlfriend at the time. And then you had the infamous Las Vegas incident. It was all too much for the Browns and he was not worth the baggage.
Manziel appeared on the YNK Podcast and reflected on how bad of a teammate he was in the NFL.
“Looking back on it now, I would say I absolutely, 100% lost their respect … I would say we wasted a draft pick to go get this guy who doesn’t give a f—. And that’s my only thing in life that I haven’t been able to look back and like fully have closure on … it’s probably one of the only things that I haven’t looked back on and been able to be like super, super okay with what happened,” Manziel said.
Manziel feels badly about wasting some years of the career for his teammates at the time by not trying harder.
“I regret not going and being closer with these guys and being distant into the other life that I was living. And it’s nuts. And to sit back and look at it now, it’s a shameful thing and something that I have to look back, and at the end of the day, I can only say ‘Yo’ to those guys,” Manziel said.
It’s nice that Manziel can reflect maturely about things now. It’s too bad he didn’t see it at the time when so many of us did and knew what he was wasting.
Manziel also tried to play in the CFL, Spring League, and AAF. He’s 27 now and has sadly admitted his playing career is over. It’s such a shame, because he was so fun to watch in college.
