Mike Pettine: Opportunity is there for Johnny Manziel

Sep 27, 2015; Cleveland, OH, USA; Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel (2) watches the game alone on the end of the sidelines during the second half against the Oakland Raiders at FirstEnergy Stadium. The Raiders won 27-20. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

The Cleveland Browns are giving Johnny Manziel another shot at being the team’s starting quarterback, but is he done to his last strike?

Cleveland Browns head coach Mike Pettine said on Wednesday that the opportunity is there for quarterback Johnny Manziel – but the consequences could be harsh if Manziel squanders it yet again.

After benching Manziel for two weeks after his latest off-the-field transgression, the Browns are turning back Manziel for Sunday’s game against the San Francisco 49ers and, possibly, the remainder of the seasons.

Now it is up to Manziel to prove he is ready to be a starting quarterback in the NFL.

“He and I talked, and he also understands – I’ve said this a lot – to be a starting quarterback in this league, it is so much more than what’s done on the field,” Pettine said. “There’s the responsibility that you have when you’re an NFL football player and then you add to it when you’re an NFL quarterback. That’s a big part of it. Earning respect of teammates and trust of coaches is just as important as what you’re doing on the field. Like I said, he understands it and he knows this is an opportunity for him, and we all want him to take full advantage of it.”

“Our first concern always will be with the person before the player.” – Head coach Mike Pettine

While Pettine would not go as far as saying that Manziel is down to his final chance, he did say that if (when?) Manziel messes up again, a benching could be the least of his worries.

“It would be hard for me to sit here and say we have a zero-tolerance policy,” Pettine explained, “but if something were to occur, I could imagine that the repercussions would be harsh.”

With Pettine’s future with the team in doubt, the question is will he be around to hand out the repercussions if the situations calls for it?

Pettine also stressed that while the Browns were obviously aware of Manziel’s reputation coming out of Texas A&M, there was really no way to anticipate that the team’s first-round quarterback would essentially redshirt his rookie year without letting the coaches know, spend a portion of the off-season in a rehab facility, and continually put himself on the home page of such websites as TMZ.

“Earning respect of teammates and trust of coaches is just as important as what you’re doing on the field.” – Head coach Mike Pettine

“I don’t think we anticipated that his problems, his issues, maybe how deep rooted they were and the extent of it,” Pettine seaid. “If you sat in our draft meetings and listened to the background reports on a lot of our guys and you took guys off the board based on that, there would be about five or six magnets left over to pick from. You have to decide – How much of this is maturity? Was it early in his college career? Is it continuing? You do as much research as you can.

“The other part that is impossible to predict is when you have players that are in college and all of a sudden they come to the NFL, and now they are getting NFL paychecks and how will that affect them, and you are trying to predict that. That is why the draft is hit or miss with so many guys just because of how impossible it is to predict those things as they move forward.”

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As for the actual game on Sunday, the 49ers present a good opportunity, not just for Manziel but the entire offense, to try and get things back on track as San Francisco’s defense is ranked 28th overall, 27th against the pass and 28th against the run.

“(Johnny) has had production – you don’t throw for 375 yards on the road in Pittsburgh by accident,” Pettine said. “He went out there and executed the plan, did a lot of good things in the pocket and then when the play broke down made some plays out of the pocket. Is he is batting 1.000? No, he has made mistakes. He has had issues with turning the ball over. That is stuff we are working on.

“We just feel from the overall sense with all the details that are involved in quarterback play that he has covered a lot of distance, and the eagerness and desire is there for him to continue to head down that right path.”

Manziel has somehow earned his way back into another opportunity that all the time and effort the Browns have invested in him over the past year-and-a-half has not been wasted.

It’s now up to him to start repaying some of that trust.

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