Browns: Strap in for Manziel Mania or don’t, be just as prepared

May 21, 2014; Berea, OH, USA; Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel (2) during organized team activities at Cleveland Browns practice facility. Mandatory Credit: Andrew Weber-USA TODAY Sports

Whether a person waits until preseason or they stay up to date on every twist and turn with Johnny Manziel’s happenings off the field, they are going to be just as informed about how prepared he will be for the season.  Manziel’s weekend trip to Las Vegas has every talking head weighing in on what it means and how it is good or bad for the Cleveland Browns of Manziel’s career.  The timing of Manziel’s trip may not have been ideal, but beyond that, the rest of this stuff is simply noise.

People can listen to everyone on TV, radio and read everyone in print on every single angle to this Manziel issue.  Some may end up changing their minds a few times before they ultimately settle on an opinion on what this means for Manziel and the Browns.  They don’t know anything.  No one does.

For some, the assumption is that Manziel is blowing off his responsibility of what it means to be a quarterback in the NFL.  The fact that Browns head coach said Brian Hoyer was ahead by a “substantial margin” should have caused Manziel to spend every waking moment splitting time between the weight room and the film room; that he simply does not get it.  That could all be true.

It is also possible that Manziel did nothing but work hard over the past week, putting a ton of hours into both his playbook and getting physically prepared for the season before taking the trip to Vegas.  Since Manziel has become a celebrity quarterback, he has always been someone that burns the candle at both ends.  He has fun and still manages to put in a lot of work into his craft.

The other end of this is the assumption that because Hoyer is not in the spotlight, he does absolutely nothing but work on football and maybe that is the case.  He also could have spent Memorial Day weekend with his family or friends and done nothing with football over the weekend himself.  It is all speculation and just causes people to think, rethink and overthink this whole thing to where more time is being spent discussing the issue than it took for Manziel to go to and come back from Vegas.  And shouldn’t the people spending so much time invested in what Manziel is doing be focusing on the proverbial starting job in their respective careers?

It is so easy to put incredibly rigorous expectations for other people when it comes to how much work they should be putting into something; especially when it comes to sports.  People are passionate about sports and want to win, so the players on their respective teams should do nothing but anything that could possibly help them make themselves and their team better.  And some of these people become parents and then make their kids do just that, which never, ever has disastrous results.

Just as useless as the people overthinking and criticizing Manziel for going to Vegas are the people that are defending the move by suggesting that the Browns should want a quarterback that does this type of thing; that he would not be as qualified if he was not.  Successful quarterbacks come in all shapes, sizes, and mentalities.

Johnny Manziel is exactly the player he was at Texas A&M.  Hopefully, he is a little more mature and wiser for some of the things he did while at College Station, but the Browns knew what they were getting.  Ray Farmer and Pettine are not sitting by the phone worrying about Manziel when they see the pictures coming from Manziel’s Instagram account, assuming Pettine knows what Instagram is.  If that was their mindset with Manziel, they should not have drafted him.

If people want to hang on to Manziel’s every movement and follow him on social media and everything else waiting and analyzing the good and the bad as it might relate to his ability to be the quarterback of the Cleveland Browns, more power to them.  The reality is they are no more informed or more passionate a fan than the people that realize that nothing that happened this weekend has any bearing on how hard Manziel is working or his readiness to take over the quarterback position, either this season or ever.  There are just too many unknowns involved.

And if anyone thinks this is the last time Manziel is going to go out and have fun publicly, prepare to be disappointed.  Strap in and enjoy the Manziel ride or just wait for events that actually matter and spend that time getting excited about the rest of the roster . Nothing that happened this weekend with Manziel, pending a legal issue, is ultimately going to have any impact on his long term ability to be a starting quarterback.