Rabu, 28 Maret 2018

Johnny Manziel on NFL future: 'This is the comeback season'

Johnny Manziel just wants to play football.

It's the end goal of everything he's done up to his appearance in The Spring League in Austin, Texas. All the workouts, all the tedious media appearances, all of it hopefully culminating in a second chance. He's stated, multiple times to multiple people, that he doesn't want to be handed anything immediately. He just wants a chance, one more shot to play football.

Hunter Cooke/DieHards
Johnny Manziel works on his game. (Hunter Cooke/DieHards)

The time for Manziel to prove himself is fast approaching. He's one of two quarterbacks on the South team in The Spring League — the other one being former East Carolina quarterback Cody Keith. Their first game is on April 7, and Manziel can't wait for it to begin.

"It's been a lot of talking," Manziel said. "I realize I haven't been doing this for a long time, so hopefully people aren't sick of me yet. They might be. But, nonetheless, football is right around the corner. We play a game on the 7th, here [Kelly Reeves Athletic Complex, Austin, Texas], so it's close."

It hasn't been easy for Manziel, whose days of partying with Justin Bieber and Drake are long gone. It hasn't been easy for those around Manziel either. He detailed a tearful exchange with his mother in a conversation with ESPN's Scott Van Pelt that he credits as one of his turning points.

"I felt like I was going to end up somewhere, on a team last year," Manziel said. "It fell through. I took it hard. Really hard."

He draws a quick breath, then continues, saying, "I had done a lot of the groundwork in what I felt like I needed to do. But I slipped back into a little bit of a depression, fell into a little bit of a hole, and, when my mom said that, and what it looked like on her face, and just how my life affected her and the rest of my family. The stuff that I didn't always understand and see, that was one of the big turning points for me."

Hunter Cooke/DieHards
Johnny Manziel gets ready for the spotlight again. (Hunter Cooke/DieHards)

Manziel is attempting to move past one of the most troubled histories a professional football player can have. In 2013, he was suspended for the opening half of Texas A&M's season opener for selling autographs. In 2014, he was fined for flipping off the Washington Redskins' bench. He was benched in 2015 for partying in Texas during a bye week. The partying received all the headlines, but the most troubling incident in a long rap sheet was his early 2016 indictment on misdemeanor assault charges, stemming from a domestic dispute with a then-girlfriend.

He's made amends and is hoping to put everything behind him. According to him and those around him, he's clean, he's in peak physical condition and he's willing to work with whatever chance he's given, whether that's in the NFL or elsewhere.

"This is the comeback season. This is me, coming back from being down and out for two years, since my last game with the Browns," Manziel said. "I put my all into this. I put all my eggs into one basket. I'm going out every day with the mindset of 'this is my last chance trying to get back to what I love and what I want to do since I was a kid.'"

"I got to a point in my life where I took it for granted. I let the things that football did for me off the field trump what I was doing football-wise. It's a regret that I'll have to live with for a long time, but the only way that I can make up for what happened in the past is to make it back to where I once was."

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