Johnny Manziel's weekend adventures will continue to make "news" around the country. Cleveland Browns coach Mike Pettine will continue to ignore it.
"We're not going to be in the business of micromanaging our players outside of the building," Pettine told NFL Media's Adam Schein on his Mad Dog Sports Radio show Tuesday. "It's something that he (Manziel) understands. But what he's gonna do is, he's not gonna cause it, he's not gonna allow it to kind of force him to live his life differently."
In time, perhaps the attention on Manziel's weekends will die down. Although that will be tougher to achieve during this age of digital cameras.
"If you followed other guys, you'd get some pictures. Maybe not an inflatable swan, but you'd get some pictures," Pettine cracked to reporters in a reference to the most recent picture of Manziel that was passed around this weekend.
Pettine told Schein that he has no questions about Manziel's love for the game, so he won't hold his fame against him. And that a lot of folks are jealous of his fame.
"One of the biggest things that we look at when we evaluate players from a personality standpoint -- it's a very fine line -- it's how much does the player love football versus how much does this player love what football does for him. And there's no issue if it's both, but what we don't want is a guy that loves what football does for him and really doesn't love the game. And that's very much not the case with Johnny (Manziel). He absolutely loves football, very competitive. ...
For now, Manziel continues to battle Brian Hoyer for the team's starting job. Since Hoyer isn't fully recovered from his ACL surgery, Manziel is taking first team snaps during 11-on-11 drills. NFL Media's Aditi Kinkhabwala noted that Hoyer's release and ability to go through his reads is still ahead of Manziel. Pettine insists that Manziel is starting from scratch.
"He understands Johnny Football was earned at Texas A&M, but he really has to hit the reset button. It's like back to zero in the NFL; it would kind of ring hollow that if he was promoted as Johnny Football and he's not performing well in the NFL," Pettine said. "So he knows he has to earn that job, he's gotta win the job first and be a productive player in the league for that to come back. And I think he handles it very well. While some people question the maturity of some of the things that he does, when it comes to taking care of business, football-wise, he's very mature."
*The end to the latest Around The League Podcast is full of shock and awe. *
