opinion

Johnny, Johnny, Johnny

FLICKR.COM Erik Drost | PHOTO COURTESY Johnny Manziel is currently struggling with off the field issues that are threatening his professional career.
FLICKR.COM Erik Drost | PHOTO COURTESY
Johnny Manziel is currently struggling with off the field issues that are threatening his professional career.

I skipped a Timeflies concert two years ago to watch you get drafted on live television.

I spent just under $100 on a white Cleveland Browns jersey with your number and name on it.

I procrastinated study to watch many Youtube clips of you at Texas A&M.

Johnny, Johnny, Johnny Manziel.

All you had to do was snap the football and not fumble, but you turned it over and now your life is in shambles.

You had the odds beat, Johnny. In 2014 there was 15,588 senior student athletes at the college level and just 256 of those young men get drafted into the NFL. So, not even 2 percent of those seniors get to play at the professional level.

But whatever happened on draft night back in May of 2014 changed Manziel for the worse, and now the only achievement he’s managed to unlock at the NFL level is best drinking companion.

Ever since he entered the NFL, it’s been one bad headline after another.

Most recently, he allegedly assaulted his ex-girlfriend, which left her with a ruptured left eardrum.

The incident happened earlier this month, with Manziel, the most-hyped college football quarterback at one time, telling her that he would kill himself and her if she didn’t shut up.

“He grabbed me by my hair and threw me back into the car and got back in himself,” the ex-girlfriend told authorities. “He hit me with his open hand on my left ear for jumping out of the car.”

That has been by far his worst off-the-field issue in his early but possibly short-lived NFL career.

I mean, figure it out man. You have the talent. Lock yourself in your house on the weekends. And party or just Netflix’n’chill, but whatever you do, don’t get it on video camera.

It seems every time Manziel is in the news it’s because one of his “buddies” got the incident on camera.

Johnny needs help. Oh wait, he already did and it didn’t work. So, get help again, man.

He’s also held at a higher standard than everyone else because he’s a professional athlete. Kids look up to this young man. And what he’s doing off the field is unprofessional, though I do believe the media and the Browns organization have been blowing some of his issues out of a cannon, making them explode into larger issues.

The man likes to party. What 23-year-old doesn’t? You have to take the good with the bad. And if the good is his play, which it is, and the bad is his drinking, which it is, you have to take both, you cannot pick and choose.

He’s a human being, he’s going to have off-the-field issues because not everyone is God and not all professional athletes can handle the spotlight, even though it shines dark and low in Cleveland.

Johnny, there’s a lot of people rooting for you. There’s a lot of people offering you help, so please, listen to them and get back on the field.

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