Words by Roman White
Former Cleveland Browns quarterback and Heisman trophy winner Johnny Manziel seems to be throwing shade at his former team as well as plotting his return to football.
In an early morning Instagram post, the former Texas A&M Aggie posted a picture from his days as a Cleveland Brown doing his famous money gesture celebration. The caption reads, “0-16 szn” which is a reference to the Browns not winning a single game in the 2017 regular season. In the last 32 regular season games, the Browns have only won one game.
The Browns were not significantly better with Manziel, although the young offense could’ve been promising. Browns Wide Receiver, Josh Gordon, dealt with off field issues involving marijuana since 2014. After intense rehab, the one-time leading receiver in terms of yards returned to play in the final leg of the Browns hopeless season and impressed despite having a lackluster rookie quarterback in Deshone Kizer.
Manziel posted another picture of him in a long sleeve shirt practicing his once deadly throwing ability with the caption “Just Wait on it #ComebackSzn.” This comes after reports that Manziel is now eligible to compete in the Canadian Football League after dealing with a recently dismissed domestic violence case from April 2016. The CFL wll require Manziel to meet certain requirements to maintain his eligibility in the CFL; those requirements have not been made public.
Manziel, who hasn’t played a game since being released from Cleveland, is currently in contract with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats who he worked out for back in August.
When Manziel was drafted in 2014, it was not without some doubt about his ability to mature. Coming out of college, Manziel was dealing with a ton of negative press for getting into a bar fight in Austin, Texas as well as many other criticisms about his behavior going into the NFL.
In his short-lived NFL run, Manziel didn’t show the same elite talent he had in college, which is somewhat expected, but with the off-field drama as well as reportedly showing up drunk to a practice toward the end of the season, the Browns organization felt that he wasn’t worth the trouble and released him in the 2016 off season.
