It’s never a good sign when an NFL player whose team isn’t in the Super Bowl makes headline news in the last weekend of January.
But nothing is surprising anymore when it comes to Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel, and that’s why the Browns need to cut him — for the benefit of all parties involved.
This time, he was allegedly involved in another altercation with his ex-girlfriend on Saturday when police were called to a Fort Worth apartment around 2 a.m.
A 23-year-old woman told police there was an incident involving her ex-boyfriend, and she was worried about his welfare. The ex-boyfriend was later identified as Manziel.
And that’s far from the first time Manziel’s name has been draped across the news in just the past year alone.
He voluntarily started a more than 10-week stay in a rehabilitation clinic for undisclosed reasons at this time last year, and many hoped that put him back on the right track.
But, he was pulled over for a domestic dispute in October and admitted to having been drinking, but the police determined he wasn’t intoxicated. No charges were filed. Then a video surfaced in mid-November of Manziel partying during the team’s bye week — just one week after being named the Browns’ starter — with a large bottle of alcohol, for which he was benched the next day.
I can go on all day listing incidents involving Manziel, but that’s not important. What’s important is the Cleveland Browns desperately need a change of culture if they ever hope to become a winning team again, and Manziel is setting that back.
Notorious as the NFL’s bottom feeders, the Browns haven’t made the playoffs since 2002 Recently-hired head coach Hue Jackson can start his tenure off on the right foot by releasing Manziel on Feb. 8, when the NFL’s waiver system begins.
As long as he is on the roster, fans will call for the starting quarterback’s head in favor of Manziel, and rightfully so. He’s more talented than half the starters in the league, but football should no longer be the primary concern.
This is the second time in four months police have been called for a domestic dispute, and it very well may be a direct result of the drinking problem he’s developed from partying.
For Manziel, there are more important things to worry about than upholding your celebrity status as a backup quarterback on one of the worst teams in the league. He needs to worry about his health and where he’ll be five years from now. If he continues down this path, he’ll end up out of the league and in the penitentiary.
On the other hand, if he sits out a year from football and gets the help he needs, he’ll still only be 24 years old, and there will be a quarterback-needy team that will give him a shot.
In my perfect world, where any treatment he undergoes is successful and he comes back more focused on football, he could be a Pro Bowler in five years time. But if he doesn’t seek help, he’ll end up another casualty of fame.
For that, please release him, Hue.
Jacob Hamilton is a 21-year-old political science junior from Slidell, Louisiana. You can reach him on Twitter @jac0b_hamilt0n.