Johnny Football to start tonight

[RiverDog]

I guess the league must have cleared him of the possible DV violation they were investigating.

[NorthHawk]

It's Thursday Night Football - Prime Time, so they wouldn't jeopardize any possible ratings considering it should be a bad game anyway.

[RiverDog]

Yea, likely to be a really boring game, but I have AJ Green on my fantasy team, so I'll tune in.

[Hawktawk]

Pettine was effusive in his praise of Johnny's work habits and grasp of the playbook in an interview this week. We will see. Its Manziels best last chance to be the man in Cleveland now. I will wish him well.

[RiverDog]

Unless he's changed, the guy's an arrogant little prick, undeserving of the fame and money that fell in his lap. I don't wish any individual to fail other than to enhance our own team's chances, but it wouldn't hurt my feelings one iota if he were to do a face plant.

[EmeraldBullet]

Not sure someone that far up their own @$$ has the ability to change. Glad the Bengals are in the AFC so I can root for them to roll over the Bengals without it affecting the seahawks at all.

[HumanCockroach]

I don't know, the slow footed way the league works Johnny football could be suspended next season at this time and it wouldn't surprise me in the least.

[RiverDog]

He's actually played pretty well through the first quarter, made some good decisions.

[Zorn76]

Easy money picking against Manziel and the Browns tonight.

[Hawktawk]

I thought the kid played pretty well considering. Talk about a pedestrian receiving corps he doinked the ball right off a couple of guys. You cant throw it much better than that. Yeah this kid might be a punk but he's young. He has some moxie and I cant help but like his game.

If I'm Ray Farmer and Mike Pettine I'm certainly going to see what Cleveland has in Manziel for the next 2 months. There is no possible upside to bringing McCown back in with the season lost .

[RiverDog]

I thought the kid played pretty well considering. Talk about a pedestrian receiving corps he doinked the ball right off a couple of guys. You cant throw it much better than that. Yeah this kid might be a punk but he's young. He has some moxie and I cant help but like his game.

If I'm Ray Farmer and Mike Pettine I'm certainly going to see what Cleveland has in Manziel for the next 2 months. There is no possible upside to bringing McCown back in with the season lost .

I thought he played reasonably well at times, particularly in the first half. And although I agree that he didn't get a lot of help from his receiving corps, anytime a quarterback has a sub .500 completion percentage (15-33 for the game, 4-15 in the second half) it has to be a concern. He's still a long ways away from being starting material.

McCown was playing fairly well this season, with a 65% completion rate, 11 TD's vs. 4 INT's, and a 95.2% QBR, so I doubt that we'll see much of Manziel once McCown comes off the DL. He really didn't do very much last night that would make a coach change their mind about him and there was no indication that the Browns were considering a QB change when McCown went down. Manziel is still finding himself in the news, too, and the coaching staff can't be happy with him as the "face of the franchise."

[Hawktawk]

[quote="RiverDog"]

I thought he played reasonably well at times, particularly in the first half. And although I agree that he didn't get a lot of help from his receiving corps, anytime a quarterback has a sub .500 completion percentage (15-33 for the game, 4-15 in the second half) it has to be a concern. He's still a long ways away from being starting material.

McCown was playing fairly well this season, with a 65% completion rate, 11 TD's vs. 4 INT's, and a 95.2% QBR, so I doubt that we'll see much of Manziel once McCown comes off the DL.

I agree with most of what you said there RD. McCown actually played very well at times this year and I believe set a couple of Cleveland single game records. He certainly justified Pettines decision to start him. But the team has 2 wins and Manziel has one of them in 2 starts.He also came into a game after a McCown injury and played well in that appearance I dont know if he is a "long ways" from starter material. We just won't know if he gets a start once or twice a year.I'm not an apologist for the guy, just saying this would be the time it would make sense to find out what he has got.

This isn't a conventional situation. It is time to see what the 25th pick in the 2014 draft can do with first team reps in order to decide what to do in the off season. IMO there is NO UPSIDE to starting a mid 30's career backup at this point. the season is lost and McCown isn't the long term answer for anybody as a starter.

Beyond that the Cleveland fan base needs some excitement to keep them showing up the rest of this season and Manziel could be the ticket to keep the dollars flowing in the cash register the last 7 games.

[RiverDog]

I agree with most of what you said there RD. McCown actually played very well at times this year and I believe set a couple of Cleveland single game records. He certainly justified Pettines decision to start him. But the team has 2 wins and Manziel has one of them in 2 starts.He also came into a game after a McCown injury and played well in that appearance I dont know if he is a "long ways" from starter material. We just won't know if he gets a start once or twice a year.I'm not an apologist for the guy, just saying this would be the time it would make sense to find out what he has got.

This isn't a conventional situation. It is time to see what the 25th pick in the 2014 draft can do with first team reps in order to decide what to do in the off season. IMO there is NO UPSIDE to starting a mid 30's career backup at this point. the season is lost and McCown isn't the long term answer for anybody as a starter.

Beyond that the Cleveland fan base needs some excitement to keep them showing up the rest of this season and Manziel could be the ticket to keep the dollars flowing in the cash register the last 7 games.

Yea, we'll see. Pettine says he's not making a decision until early next week. I'm not saying that they shouldn't start him, I'm just saying that his performance doesn't justify a QB change. Now since they've already thrown in the towel on the season and are in an evaluation mode, then perhaps. One thing's for sure, though. If he can't keep his nose clean, he's not going to last very long even as a backup.

[Seahawks4Ever]

I agree, Manziel had a decent 1st. half and had more than a few balls dropped by his receivers. In the 2nd. half the Bengals totally shut the Brown's offense down. It wasn't too long and Manziel had reverted back to the QB who came into the league unprepared.