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Joe Thomas Reveals Dark Picture Of Manziel’s Time With The Browns

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David Hookstead Sports And Entertainment Editor
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Legendary Cleveland Browns linesman Joe Thomas made it seem that Manziel was bound for disaster from the very start with team.

Thomas said the following on the “Thomahawk” podcast:

He was drafted in the first round. He was the heir apparent as the quarterback, and people in the front office wanted to sell tickets and they wanted Johnny Manziel playing.

Everybody that was on the football side of things that saw him practice, that saw him prepare – or lack of prepare – saw him in the meeting room, saw that he wasn’t mature enough, he wouldn’t be able to handle it. But the first moment that (Brian) Hoyer slips up, now you’ve got those very powerful people in the front office saying, ‘You gotta play this guy, you gotta play this guy’ and it went on for a couple of weeks and finally it got to the point where they won the argument and we had to play Johnny and as soon as that happened it was like everybody on the football side just gave up because they knew what the results were going to be like.

Some of this stuff is obvious. The first part about wanting “Johnny Manziel playing” is one of the most obvious things I’ve ever heard about the whole situation that went down in Cleveland. He was a Heisman winning quarterback at Texas A&M and he moves the needle. Of course the front office wants to use that for all it’s worth. It’d be shocking to me if they wanted to wait with Manziel.

Just wait on it #ComebackSZN

A post shared by Johnny Manziel (@jmanziel2) on

However, the stuff about the coaching staff just giving up is a bit shocking to me. I don’t care who your quarterback is in the NFL. There is literally never a reason to throw in the towel. Coaches aren’t being paid small fortunes to not give their best effort. That’s absolutely unacceptable.

It’s crazy how we’re two years removed from the disaster in Cleveland, and it’s still moving the needle all the time. That’s just the power of Johnny Football.

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