Video: LeBron James Jr. is good at basketball
December 22, 2014WFNY’s 12 Days of Christmas, 2014 Edition: Day Eleven
December 22, 2014If you thought that 2013 was one crazy year in the world of Cleveland Sports, 2014 once again proved that there is rarely a dull moment. There were good times and bad, hirings and firings, wins and losses, homecomings and award winners. As the year comes to a close, like we have done the last six years, WFNY will take a look at what we view to be the ten biggest sports stories to grace our local sports scene over the last 12 months. Each day through the rest of the year, we will be counting down from ten to one. Do enjoy.
With the 22nd pick of the 2014 NFL Draft, the Cleveland Browns select Johnny Manziel, quarterback, Texas A&M. Cleveland turned into the biggest news of the NFL in a matter of moments. The Browns chose a Heisman Trophy winner and the most talked about prospect in the NFL Draft. The Browns were entering an unknown world of being one of the top stories in the national sports arena.
The 2014 NFL Draft process was a long one for Browns fans especially with the draft starting later then usual. All the talk for Cleveland sports fans since probably Week 12 or so of the 2013 NFL season had been about the quarterback position. Will the Browns draft a quarterback and if so who do they like the best? It was the talk of every sports talk radio show in Cleveland for many months.
|
Manziel, Bridgewater, or Bortles? Who did the Browns prefer? There seemed to be rumors and news every day that the Browns liked one quarterback over the other. It was split amongst Browns’ fans in who they wanted to draft. Each side was defiant about their pick and how bad the other quarterbacks were compared to their choice. It was an amazing debate. The Browns had everyone in the dark going into May 8, the beginning of the 2014 NFL Draft.
The draft for the Browns started with a trade down and then the selection of cornerback Justin Gilbert. At that point, many people, including me, thought that selecting Johnny Manziel was out of the question because he would have been selected by the Browns’ second pick in the first round, No. 26. But then Manziel kept falling and falling until pick number No. 22 came up. There were rumors that the Browns were looking to trade up. Social media then blew up when the news came down that the Browns were trading up to grab Manziel. “Manziel Mania” had landed in Cleveland, Ohio as Johnny Football became a Cleveland Brown.
The Browns were drafting their franchise quarterback who hopefully can lead them back to relevancy. In terms of the news, the Browns did return to relevancy. Manziel’s vacation escapades were on the front page of newspapers and tabloids. Las Vegas, drunk on a swan, and a money phone are just a few things that Johnny Football made famous. Then, comes training camp, which was a national media circus with almost every national sports news outlet converging in Berea, Ohio. Everyone wanted to get his or her eyes on Johnny Football in the NFL.
The Browns changed their whole training camp format because of this hysteria surrounding Manziel. Because of the high interest of getting to see a Manziel practice in his first NFL training camp, the Browns had all the fans register for tickets to training camp to allow the team to control the number of people who came to practices each day. It was an unprecedented process for the Cleveland Browns.
Then came his first ever action in the NFL, when the Browns started off their preseason slate at Detroit. The Mania was at full throttle when Manziel stepped out onto the field for the very first time. In his first game action against the Lions, he had a solid performance showing some of the traits that excited people at Texas A&M. Fans saw his dual-threat ability to make plays and be the franchise quarterback who the city has been looking for since Bernie Kosar.
Then the mania was quieted for quite awhile. Johnny Manziel struggled as the preseason went along with his counterpart Brian Hoyer. Manziel was unable to fully grasp the playbook and struggled to separate in the quarterback competition. Head coach Mike Pettine subsequently named Brian Hoyer the starting quarterback for the regular season, ending the mania for the foreseeable future.
Johnny Football played a few snaps early in the regular season, but midway through Manziel was stuck to the bench. The Browns were 6-3 and there was talk of maybe signing Hoyer to long-term contract. The mania was at its lowest murmur and Browns’ fans had no care in the world for it because the team was winning football games. But the resurgence of Manziel mania would come sooner then anyone could of thought at that time.
After the 6-3 start to the season, the Browns season pretty much fell apart. In the next four games, the Browns went 1-3 and the play of Hoyer had dropped since the beginning of the season. The outcry to put Johnny in was at its highest point after the team lost to the Indianapolis Colts with no production from the offense. This game led to Pettine giving Johnny Football his first start.
The city of Cleveland could not wait to get their first glimpse of the future. Manziel’s first start drew a huge audience with 48% of the country getting the chance to check it out on FOX. The game could not have more anticipation. But in Cleveland sports fashion, the anticipation came crashing down.
Johnny Manziel was horrible in his first start, losing to the Cincinnati Bengals 30-0. The mania had gone from 100 all the way to 0 in a matter of 60 minutes of football. In the game, Manziel completed 10 of 18 for 80 yards and two interceptions along with just 13 yards rushing. This performance dampened the enthusiasm of almost all Browns’ fans.
And now this past Sunday, Manziel ended his day early after struggling once again. It just adds another wild mark on the season for Manziel. What a rollercoaster of emotions since May 8. The single word to sum up all of these crazy and unbelievable moments for Johnny Football is mania. Manziel Mania!
1 Comment
Feel like this should be higher… Lebron & Kluber are 1&2. But no other story was as big as this, argubably this could be ahead of the CyKluber.