Cleveland Browns: Johnny Manziel and the Character Debate

It’s tough to build an NFL team with the right mix of people. You need charisma and leadership, but not so much that the leaders are overbearing or egotistical. You need dedication and determination, but it’s hard to set universal goals for what this looks like. You need space for individualism in a crowded locker room. And you want to eliminate troublemakers.

Football is its own enemy to the process of character building. There are many positive traits to be developed through playing football – teamwork, resilience, endurance, good sportsmanship, and leadership, just to name a few. But the very nature of football also breeds its own specters and one of these has become Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel.

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Football is the most popular sport in the United States. As Ira Boudway of Bloomberg.com noted, the NFL is a multi-billion dollar industry that continues to see profits rise annually. The demand for more reporting, speculation and insight into the game and those who play it is increasing. With the rise of social media and a general decrease in privacy, it’s possible to fill that demand with information about players’ personal lives.

And fill it we have, from leaked videos showing Riley Cooper at a concert to Ray Rice in an elevator, the private lives of players are on display as never before. Media and fans are equally complicit in monetizing the value of digging up dirt on players, especially high-profile ones.

Though it’s termed an embarrassment when incidents occur, there’s a certain amount of schaudenfreude we can indulge in too. The bottom line is. even though we have a new personal conduct policy with harsher punishments for first-time offenses, there’s little real incentive to avoid players with character red flags. Physical ability and talent are still the most important aspects of a player’s value.

Johnny Manziel is the embodiment of this issue. I’ll admit that I’ve never been a fan of his –while still at Texas A&M I thought his play was overrated and his off-the-field antics were annoying. To me he is a prime example of the player who loves the celebrity more than the sport itself.

It’s ironic then that, in discussing player character, Browns head coach Mike Pettine was quoted as looking for exactly the opposite sort of player as far back as April of 2014 when he told Fox Sports Ohio’s Zac Jackson, “We want guys who love football as opposed to guys who love what football does for them.”

May 8, 2014; New York, NY, USA; Johnny Manziel (Texas A&M) gestures on stage after being selected as the number twenty-two overall pick in the first round of the 2014 NFL Draft to the Cleveland Browns at Radio City Music Hall. Mandatory Credit: Adam Hunger-USA TODAY Sports

During the 2014 draft I was annoyed at how much air time was spent on Manziel, yet pleased when he started to slip down the board even though it meant more shots of him waiting uneasily in the green room. When the Browns selected Manziel at number 22 overall, I was satisfied that at least he was going to a franchise that would benefit from the media excitement. As a Virginia resident and Washington Redskins observer (I can’t call myself a fan), seeing Manziel cross the draft platform flashing his trademark “money sign” was shades of Albert Haynesworth. At least, I thought, Manziel was honest about being here for the money.

And the Browns had picks to spare, having already selected Justin Gilbert, who looked like a solid corner. Little did we know that he too would wind up with off-field issues, a testament to how difficult it is to unearth them sometimes. Surely Johnny Manziel’s issues were in the spotlight and the team was going into this with it’s eyes open.

But somehow, the Browns organization saw him differently. Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post quoted Coach Pettine as saying “We had the information that everybody else in the league had. It’s easy to look back now and say, ‘What did you miss?’ You can interpret something a little bit differently now, and it turns out to be a deeper-rooted thing than you thought.” I’m not sure how Johnny’s partying ways and penchant for the finer things in life escaped his notice. But coaches also seem to believe that their organization might have the magic formula to keep certain players in line.

Sep 14, 2014; Cleveland, OH, USA; Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel (2) and head coach Mike Pettine before a game against the New Orleans Saints at FirstEnergy Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Ron Schwane-USA TODAY Sports

We need to start calling that what it is – wishful thinking. We need to stop encouraging poor behavior by increasing the value of good character when vetting prospective players. And we need to discourage it by organizations firmly creating codes of character within their organization and sticking to them, no matter who the player involved might be.

The Browns are hardly the only ones – look at Justin Blackmon. Will he ever come off suspension for the Jacksonville Jaguars?

What about Josh Brent, who drove drunk and killed teammate Jerry Brown, then returned to play for the Dallas Cowboys? Ray Rice was all set to come back to the Baltimore Ravens, with the team advocating for no suspension time until public opinion was swayed on release of the elevator video.

As I said earlier, football itself sets up the tolerance for these scenarios. We love football so much that when we see stars emerging in high school and college we begin to excuse their bad behavior.

These are boys who in most cases have never had real responsibilities before. Many never held jobs due to their football commitments, so they’ve never learned to act professionally. Many never had much money to learn how to manage it responsibly. And almost all of them feel a debt of gratitude to the people who were with them along the way – a debt that can be exploited by unsavory acquaintances who spiral a player’s life out of control.

Johnny Manziel may not be done in the league. But with his unraveling, (and Josh Gordon and Justin Gilbert,) Adam Kilgore noted that the Browns “may seem like the team most apt to shy away from potential trouble.” But, as Kilgore reported, that’s not the case.

“If you just say we’re only going to add players to our roster that are in the National Honor Society and in the school choir, there’s a danger to that,” Mike Pettine said. “It’s rare that you’re going to have somebody that has impeccable, clean character. It’s all risk-reward. You got to weigh it. I don’t think you can just knee-jerk react and go the exact other direction and anybody who has any type of red flag shy away from.”

Except, you absolutely can do that. It just has to start somewhere. Why not now?

Next: Hello McCown, Goodbye Hoyer

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