Following the draft, Manziel would find himself in the spotlight partying with established veteran Rob Gronkowski, floating on an inflatable swan, pretending his signing bonus was a money phone while clearly plastered and finally, seen rolling up a $100 dollar bill in the bathroom of a Las Vegas nightclub on the 4th of July.
This is all before the start of the pre-season. While most seen this as extremely alarming, I chalked the behavior up to being young and paid in the NFL and looked forward to seeing Johnny cut it loose on the field. His second taste of action on the field against a different team led to a $12,000 fine after flipping off the entire Redskin’s bench – a mental lapse for rookie with a lot on his plate. Again, I created an excuse to keep the hope alive.
Johnny’s rookie year was an agreed upon failure. Not only did veterans, coaches, and front office members admit to the shortcomings of the young QB’s rookie season but Manziel publicly took the blame for his lack of production and maturity in 2014.
The Johnny Manziel Experiment Part 2.
January 28th 2015, Manziel checks himself into a rehab facility. Johnny will be famous for saying the right things in-front of the media and his decision to take a step toward sobriety was respected by fans, players, and the national media members alike. His release in April would ignite a series of questions about the readiness of the QB to take the reins of the offense in Mike Pettine’s second year. Josh McCown would be brought in and no quarterback competition would be held.
Manziel would release a public apology to the fans, retire his notorious money sign, and bury his head in a playbook for the remainder of the summer leading into the regular season.
We’re going to gloss over the October incident with now ex-girlfriend Colleen Crowley where Manziel admits to drinking previously in the day before driving recklessly to settle a domestic argument, simply because the NFL felt it unnecessary to discipline a player after admitting to drinking and driving.
Any person familiar with the repercussions of an OVI can tell you that there is no “legal limit” and it is up to the officer’s discretion to penalize the offender. However, like I said, we’ll toss that under the rug, much like the police department did.
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