Johnny Manziel opens up about why his first stint in the NFL was such a failure
- Johnny Manziel admitted he didn't typically watch film and wasn't well-versed in the Xs and Os of football when he entered the NFL.
- He also said there was no one with the Browns who helped him with that aspect of his game during his first year.
- Still, Manziel says that "it's . . . nobody else's fault but my own"
In a candid interview on the Dan Patrick Show, Johnny Manziel admitted that he did not watch game film or understand the strategic aspect of football before entering the NFL and that it took him a while to realize how much preparation an NFL quarterback had to put into his game.
"Guys are good in the NFL because they know film, they study hard, and they work even harder in the offseason," Manziel said.
"So I didn't know that. And I feel like, if Cleveland did any of their homework, they would have known that I was a guy that didn't come in every day and watch film. I was a guy that didn't really know the Xs and Os of football."
Manziel also found that the environment in Cleveland did not offer what he needed to develop properly as a football player, not in his rookie year at least.
"Nobody was there, like, helping me go over the Xs and Os, and it was hard, I struggled," he said.
And those struggles were a difficult change for a player for whom football had previously seemed to come naturally.
"This was the first time in my life, at least since my freshman year of high school, that I wasn't playing really well," Manziel said, before going to say that this was when his mental health struggles - a topic he only just recently opened up about publicly - began.
Naturally, some of Manziel's comments about his situation in Cleveland have drawn criticism, but Manziel for his part said on Twitter, " It's all about the right fit and mine in Cleveland wasn't right . . . At the end of the day it's nobody else's fault but my own. Work harder and these questions don't arise."
For more on what Manziel would have done differently after the draft and his relationship with NFL journeyman Josh McCown, you can check out the whole interview here.