Give it to Texans fans who double as Texas A&M fans on Saturdays, they love their Johnny Football.
What else can be concluded from the current poll at houstontexans.com asking fans of the Houston Texans who they would most like to see drafted by the club with the No. 1 overall pick in the May 8-10 draft? Johnny Manziel is the runaway leader with 60 percent of the vote, with more than 32,000 votes logged as of Tuesday afternoon.
The Texans will be at Manziel's pro day workout Thursday in full force. But the number of legitimate options for the club number far more than one. Quarterbacks Blake Bortles of UCF and Teddy Bridgewater of Louisville could fill the same need for the club, or Houston could opt for South Carolina defensive end Jadeveon Clowney.
In fact, Clowney seems to be the choice of the athletes in town, football players and otherwise.
But Clowney trails Manziel distantly in the fan poll, collecting just 20 percent of the vote, while Bortles (7 percent) and Bridgewater (6 percent) aren't even ahead of poll sentiment to trade down (7 percent). Meanwhile, an awfully strong contingent of Texans fans can't check the Manziel box fast enough. And we're guessing a lot of them spent Saturdays at Kyle Field the past two years.
While the poll isn't at all telling when it comes to what general manager Rick Smith and head coach Bill O'Brien will ultimately do with the pick, it might provide an inkling as to how the pick, be it Manziel or someone else, will be judged by the fan base in the long term. If the Texans go with Manziel and he succeeds, Houston has a real home-state darling on its hands and a face-of-franchise talent who could connect with fans like few others.
If it's someone else who struggles, and Manziel lights up the scoreboard elsewhere, Texans brass will be reminded of it all too often.
*Follow Chase Goodbread on Twitter **@ChaseGoodbread.*
