Browns teammates already are saying goodbye to Johnny Manziel.
Offensive lineman and team leader Joe Thomas was among the hard-partying quarterback’s biggest critics during a wasted rookie season and among his biggest supporters when a more motivated Manziel showed up to training camp last season. Now that Manziel has unraveled in a spiral of alcohol and domestic violence allegations, Thomas is just “sad.”
“It’s a sad end to the story in Cleveland for Johnny,” Thomas told Cleveland.com on Thursday. “He’s a guy that personally I like. I believe he has a lot of talent. He’s got the talent to be an NFL quarterback, but it obviously hasn’t worked out so far.”
It’s a foregone conclusion that the Browns will cut Manziel when the new league year opens on March 9. But his future in football is far from the 23-year-old’s biggest concern. Manziel’s father, Paul, voiced worries the former Heisman Trophy winner “wouldn’t make it to his 24th birthday” after he refused to enter rehab last week. Ex-girlfriend Colleen Crowley has accused Manziel of hitting her several times during a recent argument and was granted a protective order while Dallas police investigate the incident.
“It’s just a sad turn of events right now,” Thomas said. “It’s hard to really say too much about allegations because plenty of innocent people get accused of things all the time, so you don’t really know exactly what happened and obviously I wasn’t there so I don’t have a first-hand experience to go off of.
“But whatever he’s dealing with, I hope that he’s able to get that under control and get things straightened out and hopefully if football’s important to him, be able to put everything he has in his life into football. I hope that he has success with that, but obviously the other things that are going on in his life are more important right now because he needs to get those things solved and straightened out before he wants to make a comeback in football.”