Johnny Manziel is the most polarizing Draft prospect that the game has seen. Gil Brandt, with his vast experience, loves him and rates him as the very best player in this Draft with extremely accurate throwing skills, while Ron Jaworski rates him a 2nd rounder or lower. (That's a difference of over #32 places between Gil and Jaws). Some of his skills, like the ability to improvise by scrambling are unteachable, but they are real and were very successful at college. Some believe that his inclination to do this will lead to problems in the NFL - Defenses will get to him and he is very small and thin (he's over 4" shorter and 18 lbs lighter than our chubby Ryan Tannehill). He is likely to be the biggest diva that the game has ever seen (apologies to Brett Favre). What is clear is that he has had the benefit of some excellent big O-linemen like Luke Joeckel and Jake Matthews giving him the protection and extra time to do his incredible scrambling.
How often do you see such arrogance before a player arrives in the NFL? The whole selling his autographs issue to generate income after winning the Heisman Trophy. The attempt to own the rights to the term "the house that Johnny built" before he plays an NFL snap. The lying his way through the explanation of why he was kicked out of the Manning QB Coaching Academy episode (he was caught out drunk staggering on Bourbon St after 3 am looking for "action"). For many years, Archie, Peyton and Eli have had many great young rising college QBs assist in their training program. They were not all choirboys but most took the invitation as a privilege and opportunity to assist in helping to teach QB skills to schoolboys. However, Johnny's arrogance and lying made him the first and only one to be personally expelled by Archie Manning. (Remember he was just there to assist). Manziel is clearly comfortable in the limelight and that is probably a good thing for todays young QBs. However, there is a big difference between being comfortable and craving attention. Everything Johnny does feeds his enormous ego. We saw Tim Tebow's career partly go off the rails because of the circus that followed him (and a ridiculously low pass completion percentage and an inability to read Defenses). But Tim is clean living, hard working and decent. Johnny has superior talent and intelligence but the circus is real and most teams will be looking for a QB who can just play without the unwanted distraction. Most coaches won't want the problems associated with trying to mold him. But he will sell many products in Texas. They can't get enough of him.
My conclusion is that Johnny could be really great or could also be a major bust and it's a roll of the dice. The GM and owner who select Johnny Football are definitely not risk averse.
