Get used to seeing Johnny Manziel in the spotlight. He’s not going anywhere.
The Browns rookie quarterback, a subject of criticism because of his lavish lifestyle and love of nightlife, took a stand on Friday.
“I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong,” he said at the NFL Rookie Symposium Play 60 Youth Football Clinic in Ohio, according to the AP. “I’m not going to change for anybody. I’m going to enjoy my time off.”
Hall of Famers including Emmitt Smith, Warren Moon and Joe Montana recently have called out Johnny Football.
“That lifestyle is going to be a short lifestyle — a short career lifestyle — if he continues that,” Smith told 105.3 The Fan in Dallas. “As we used to say, you can’t keep burning the candle at both ends of the stick. The candle gets small fairly quick. Johnny is going to have to figure it out.”
Said Moon: “I have no problem with what he’s doing, except for the fact that he needs to keep more of a low profile.”
Manziel has taken heat for his hard-partying ways. In a recent Instagram video taken in Houston — where Manziel was celebrating “Houston Appreciation Weekend” with hip hop star Drake — he is seen holding a big stack of money and pretending it’s a phone.
Warning: Video contains a Johnny F-bomb.
He’s gone out every weekend since the draft. He’s been seen floating on a swan with a big bottle of alcohol in Austin, Texas; partying with Drake in Los Angeles; and living it up in Vegas over Memorial Day Weekend with Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski.
“I’m going out,” Manziel said Friday. “Everybody goes out on the weekends and enjoys their life and lives their life. And just for them, they don’t have people that when they walk into a place pull out their phones and all they want to do is follow me around and record everything.
“My situation is unique and different and now more than ever I’ve seen that it’s an every weekend thing wherever I’m at — whether it’s in Cleveland on a weekend, or in Dallas or anywhere on a weekend, people want to record what I’m doing because they think it’s a story.
“Everybody goes out and has fun. Everybody goes out and does that and I’m not doing anything that’s putting myself in a harmful situation.”
Several Hall of Famers might disagree.