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Johnny Manziel: Swan Won't Return His Calls

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Re: Johnny Manziel

johnny-manziel-haircut.jpg


For the people that want to show their Aggie pride, love of Johnny Football, and questionable decision-making all in a single hair cut.
That is the shittiest haircut. Even as some sort of art piece it is horrible. Look at how deformed his eyes are. My god, can't believe somebody would go out in public like that. Just a step below of getting a shitty tattoo of a guy you don't know.
 
I'm not a football guy. Like Keys, I've spent my professional life in the world of education. I have read a great deal of academic articles on expertise, and I think that body of research is applicable here. Much of the research on expertise has been conducted with highly trained chess players and musicians. The primary take-away from this field of research is that these individuals have spent 10,000 hours or 10 years of their life "deliberately practicing" to become experts. Deliberate practice is essentially dedicated work; going through the motions does not count.

This is why a quarterback like Johnny is such a risk. By selecting Johnny, an organization is betting on his willingness to dedicate an inordinate amount of time towards learning. The organization also must believe, to some degree, that the individual has some innate ability to speed up the process of gaining expertise. I have not read a lot on spacial intelligence, but I've thought that this might be something that Johnny naturally possesses. It would be advantageous for a quarterback to have this quality.

Finally, it's important to define the psychological term, automaticity. This is, for all intents in purposes, the goal of every quarterback. This is why even expert quarterbacks continue to watch so much film. For most of us, breaking down a play after-the-fact is relatively simple. We can rewind, watch multiple times, and determine what decision should have been made. What makes a quarterback special is that they are able to do this in real time. The have 10-20 seconds before the snap to analyze the defense, and 2-3 seconds after the snap to confirm and adjust. Conscious thought is not a satisfactory vehicle for this sort of decision making. These decisions have to be made in he subconscious, automatically. They are reactions more than conscious thought.

So, the question is whether or not Johnny has such a chip on his shoulder that he is willing to crawl into a hole and immerse himself in film analysis and repetition to such a degree that he's able to come into the season next year a relative expert. This says nothing about the additional obstacles he faces related to his relative small stature. His ridiculous throws last week are not my concern. These can be corrected relatively easily. And, I think he has some special traits. The Browns, however, must weigh his commitment against the need to find someone further along in the process of gaining the traits required to be an NFL quarterback.
 
1) Preparation- In a game of inches a single play can be the difference between a win and a loss. This requires a quaterback to put in mind numbing hours analyzing the upcoming opponents defense. Rinse and repeat.

How do we know how he prepares?

2) Identify coverage under center- All that preparation is rather useless unless you can identify the defensive scheme on the field, in real time, and adjust.

He's had one game to do this outside of buffalo. The preseason doesn't show us much with defensive schemes.

3) Capable of running a prostyle offense- There's a reason gimmick offense come and go in the NFL. Because they don't work in the long run. Remember the wildcat?

He's has one chance.


No one here is patting themselves on the back. Everyone wants the guy to succeed

I'm not sure about that...

The Chuck Booms of the world can yell and scream about his personality and all these other qualities that don't win football games. Until Johnny starts showing VAST improvement in the three areas above, I'll have my doubt's.

Those qualities won't win you football games alone, but they certainly help if you have the qualities you mentioned.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk at your local pub.
 
Whether Manziel or anyone else is a poor practice player is anyone's guess.

I'm certainly not claiming him to be one or the other.

The simple fact is when you start taking quotes to the media at face value, you're most likely being naive.

It's far easier to play the media than it is to play football. Terrible post.

Yet you take his partying and preparation claims from the media and act as though it's accurate.

You didn't like Hoyer starting, now you don't like johnny starting. Who do you want to start then that's on the team or accessible this season?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk at your local pub.
 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/Browns">@Browns</a> called good plays but <a href="https://twitter.com/JManziel2">@JManziel2</a> must make proper reads/throws! See how on <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NFLMATCHUP?src=hash">#NFLMATCHUP</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/830am?src=hash">#830am</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ESPN2?src=hash">#ESPN2</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/ESPNNFL">@ESPNNFL</a> <a href="http://t.co/GhtBRNafSp">pic.twitter.com/GhtBRNafSp</a></p>&mdash; Ron Jaworski (@jawsespn) <a href="View: https://twitter.com/jawsespn/status/546203145735794688
">December 20, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 
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Yet you take his partying and preparation claims from the media and act as though it's accurate.

You didn't like Hoyer starting, now you don't like johnny starting. Who do you want to start then that's on the team or accessible this season?

Partying claims? Really....claims? I'm pretty sure we can stop referring to them as "claims."

I want Manziel starting, get this experiment out of the way and move on to something else.

Hope he proves me wrong, smart enough to know he probably won't.
 
There is this cliche about smoke indicating a fire and/or Josh Gordon's presence that applies to Manziel. Seeing as Gordon and him do not appear to be buddy/buddy I think the former in all probability applies. I continue to be blown away at folks that refuse to connect the dots: numerous questions about work ethic and preparation, the team sticking with Hoyer well longer than u would think they should, and he then goes out and has a performance that reeks of a lack of preparedness. He isn't turning this around in one week, you cannot cram a year into 7 days.
 
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So this is a wonderful article isn't it?

View: https://twitter.com/JasonLaCanfora/status/546659459779805184



Signs of Johnny Manziel's struggles evident in poor practice outings

Johnny Manziel's ugly debut outing last week prompted no shortage of concern within the Browns organization given how historically bad it was. While it remains a very small sample size, when coupled with his troubling outings at practice, has certainly caused some alarm with a hope that he can take a step forward at Carolina.

Sources said the same erratic and at times non-existent footwork he displayed in his starting debut, the hyper-activity in the pocket, the poor decision-making and the overall overwhelmed nature of his performance was very similar to what he displayed in practice all week. He appeared outwardly nervous and unsure, as was the case in practice as well once he was named the starter.

One source estimated the 2014 first-round pick completed maybe 40 percent of his passes in practice leading up to his first start, and there was considerable angst about whether that would transpire on Sunday, or whether the bigger stage would bring something better out of the youngster.

With things so bad in his debut, the Browns are trying to instill more fundamental pocket work in the game plan this week, sources said, with fewer read-option looks or plays that would lead directly into Manziel taking off running. The hope is to slow him down a little and get him playing the position more soundly and traditionally, without sapping his athleticism.

He was a little better in practice this past week, sources said, but not exponentially so, and is working on not giving away so much with his eyes and locking on to options, particularly big receiver Josh Gordon. At Texas A&M, he could get away with throwing jump balls to huge star receiver Mike Evans with regularity, but overshot teammates Sunday and the Bengals defense had far too easy a time determining where the ball would be going.

While it may not be time to panic just yet, sources said if that opening performance is indicative of what transpires in the final two weeks, then panic could set in much sooner than would be the norm in these situations. Working in Manziel's favor is the fact that owner Jimmy Haslam was a primary reason he was selected by the team.
 
I'm not sure if Jason La Canfora is just speculating about that, but it's something most of us with eyes and critical thinking skills have been worried about. I hope if its indeed true that Ray Farmer has enough power in the organization to go in another direction despite Haslam's wishes.
 
Farmer seems like a strong no-nonsense type of guy. I find it hard to believe Haslam went over his head and drafted Johnny when Farmer had no interest in him. I think more than likely, Farmer liked Johnny and was on the fence about drafting him with the 2nd pick. Haslam probably was caught up in Manziel-mania so his influence pushed Farmer over the fence.

I don't think it's likely that Farmer had Manziel graded much lower and Haslam overruled the grading system and his GM to make the pick.

Usually these kind of situations are scandalized by the media and fans into something it's not.
 
I agree that Farmer seems like he's a strong no nonsense type of guy, that's actually something that concerned me about the pick. Johnny Manziel was bringing all kinds of nonsense to whatever team drafted him and everyone knew it ahead of time. It seemed more like a big splash Jimmy Haslam kind of pick than a Ray Farmer pick to me at the time, and this season has only reinforced that suspicion. But it's something we'll probably never know.

Couple that with Farmer being new to the team and Haslam obviously having no qualms with firing people quickly he may have been in a position where he felt like he had little choice.

I'm kind of on the fence on what I want the truth to be. I want my GM to make the football decisions and not the owner, but I also don't want my GM to think Johnny Manziel is a good idea either.
 
I alluded to this directly after the draft as well as the past week:

Talk to some fans of other franchises with a new ownership group. New owners spend nearly half a billion of their own money to feel involved. A pro franchise is an investment, but first and foremost it is the play thing of the owner. Jed York is doing it in San Francisco. Dan Gilbert sure as shit does it in Cleveland.

Haslam's power play for a prospect he liked, with the marketing and press numbers supporting his opinion, is more likely than far fetched. Even the follow up press leaks of "This was really Double Low Gains call" is a classic owner move. Sure, well how can we blame the owner if the quarterbacks coach made the call?

Pro franchises do this all the time.
 
I alluded to this directly after the draft as well as the past week:

Talk to some fans of other franchises with a new ownership group. New owners spend nearly half a billion of their own money to feel involved. A pro franchise is an investment, but first and foremost it is the play thing of the owner. Jed York is doing it in San Francisco. Dan Gilbert sure as shit does it in Cleveland.

Haslam's power play for a prospect he liked, with the marketing and press numbers supporting his opinion, is more likely than far fetched. Even the follow up press leaks of "This was really Double Low Gains call" is a classic owner move. Sure, well how can we blame the owner if the quarterbacks coach made the call?

Pro franchises do this all the time.

It is for some owners but I don't believe it's that way across the board, not with proven franchises. You hope it's not your owner because you're spending your hard earned money for a great product on the field and you expect that these players were hand picked by people who did their due diligence.

Haslam's power play for the most important position on the field has the potential to set the franchise back even further and that's just unacceptable at this point, in this particular city.
 

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