AKRON, Ohio — Johnny Football might never be closer to the Canton Pro Football Hall of Fame than he was Saturday afternoon, battling Brian Hoyer for the starting quarterback job of the Browns at a Brown and White intrasquad scrimmage watched by 20,000 at the University of Akron’s InfoCision Stadium, about 20 miles away from football immortality.
When it ended in a no-decision, Johnny Manziel and the rest of the Browns signed autographs on Family Day, and now it was Johnny Football by knockout.
They squealed for him, pleaded with him, showered him with love, men clad in orange Johnny Football T-shirts, little boys in No. 2 jerseys and women wearing the same starstruck look.
“John-ny, John-ny, John-ny,” they sang as he trotted toward them. Football made his way slowly from left to right, signing anything and everything handed down to him from the frantic, mesmerized cult following.
When it was time for him to stop, a Browns representative jogged with him back onto the field, and fans on the other side of the stands began cheering.
Manziel held up his index fingers as he continued toward them and blew them and a kiss.
Then he headed over to them and patted hands as he skipped his way from left to right before trotting to where the media was finishing up indoors with Hoyer.
Manziel ventured over to a water fountain in the back corner of the field house and replaced Hoyer, now that it was his turn.
Manziel was asked if he thinks he has closed the gap on Hoyer even if he didn’t get to work with the starters, and Football said: “Like I said a couple of days ago, there’s no gap that I’m looking at right now. It’s know the playbook, know everything, and there’s still so many little things here and there that can throw a play and change a play, and a defensive look, and that’s stuff that I wasn’t used to, and now I’m seeing it, adjusting, learning.”
There were several occasions when Manziel displayed his Tarkentonesque elusiveness in the pocket and RG3-esque mobility around the edge, specifically a 9-yard read-option romp.
“It felt good to run,” Manziel said.
He showed touch and accuracy, finding tight end Gary Barnidge in the back right of the end zone, although it was ruled barely out of bounds. He had a touchdown dropped.
There were a couple times he rolled right, and as he ran out of room by the sideline, rifled a pass at the last second to a receiver for a short completion.
“I think all the windows, from so far what we’ve seen so far in practice with the NFL guys are extremely tight,” Manziel said.
He is learning this isn’t Texas A&M.
“The thing for me is get better every day, and I keep saying that, I know it’s getting old, but that’s really the story of my life right now is I have to get better, continue to get more and more familiar with every single play in our offense, and days like today help,” Manziel said.
After the ninth question, the man from the Browns announced, “Thanks, Johnny, appreciate it, Johnny,” and Football scrambled away, stopping on his way out to pose for a photo with the 10-year-old son of the university’s athletic director.
In the end zone outside the field house, an 18-year-old in a mobilized wheelchair wearing a No 2 Browns jersey talked about Manziel.
“I’ve been a Johnny Football fan since the day I saw him, just the way he plays, the way he moves around the field, the way he works the field is just unlike any other,” Mike Cantu said.
It turns out Johnny Football is his inspiration.
“I broke my neck almost three years ago in a trampoline accident,” Cantu said.
He hadn’t yet met Manziel. What did he plan on saying to him?
“The reason I keep going,” the young man said. “The way the fans treat him…the fans that disrespect him, fans that don’t like him…and the way he can just shrug it off and just keep going, pushing to strive to be the best he can. Really inspiring.”
Cantu sees some of himself in Manziel.
“I’m constantly hearing doctors saying, ‘You’ll never walk again, you’ll never be this again,’ ” he began, “and it’s like, ‘You know you can say what you want, but I’m going to try my hardest to do what I can.’”
He will be entering Kent State in the fall and studying zoology.
“I’ve heard everything from, ‘You won’t walk again to you’ll never use your hands again or anything,’ ” Cantu said. “So, you know, I just gotta shrug it off, keep going.”
To him, Johnny Football is a symbol anything is possible.
“Exactly,” Cantu said.