Know Your Opponent: Notre Dame Fighting Irish
December 31, 2015Making some excuses for the Cleveland Browns: While We’re Waiting
January 1, 2016A totally real transcript of totally real discussions had within the walls of Berea. Not fake.1 Any resemblence to an all-time great Sylvester Stallone movie are purely coincidental and have nothing to do with a recent viewing of said movie at all. So, if you were wondering what really has been happening between Johnny Manziel and the Cleveland Browns organization, then you are in for a real treat.
♦♦♦
Opens as the Browns players start filing back in from break after the bye week and Mike Pettine angrily marches up to Johnny Manziel.
Manziel: There’s one video! It’s not my fault! It’s from a long time ago! I don’t want anymore out there!
Pettine: Give yourself up!
Manziel: But I didn’t do anything!
Pettine: I’m warning you boy, don’t lie to me or I’ll demote you lower than Austin Davis!
Manziel: [shouts] I didn’t do anything!
Upon a second video going viral over the Christmas weekend, Pettine once again confronts Manziel as he starts to drive away from the team complex in Berea.
Pettine: Goddammit, what the hell do you think this is? Some kind of a circus?
Manziel: I could have released ’em all, I could’ve uploaded everything. In Berea, you’re the law; out in cyberspace, it’s me. Don’t push it! Don’t push it or I’ll give you a war you won’t believe. Let it go. Let it go!
Pettine: Where you heading?
Manziel: Brunswick.
Pettine: Brunswick is south! You were heading north.
Manziel: Just gonna get something to eat.
Pettine: There’s a diner in Brunswick.
Manziel: Is there a law against me getting something to eat downtown?
Pettine: Yeah! ME!
Manziel: Why you pushing me?
Pettine: [haughty] What’d you say?
Manziel: I said why you pushing me? I haven’t done anything to you.
Pettine: First of all, you don’t ask the questions around here. I do. Understand! Second, we don’t want guys like you in this town, Millennials. Next thing we know, we got a whole bunch of guys like you in this town. THAT’S WHY! Besides, you wouldn’t like it here anyway. It’s just a quiet little town. In fact you might say it’s BORING. But that’s the way we like it. I get paid to keep it that way.
Manziel: Yeah, boring.
Manziel screeches his tires as he pulls away.
♦♦♦
Ray Farmer drops in Pettine’s office to complain about his prize first-round draft pick’s treatment.
Farmer: Why didn’t you leave the kid alone in the first place?
Pettine: Dammit, Ray, you think this kid just waltzed into town, announced he was a Heisman Trophy winner, and then I just leaned on him for the hell of it? I tried to do him a favor, I treated him like he was one of my neighbor’s kids. I did my job, Ray.
Farmer: You seem pretty motivated on this one.
Pettine: Why don’t you go out there and take a look at what’s left of my coaches nerves? You’ll see how motivated I am.
Farmer: All right, Mike, I read you. Listen, I got twenty-five million I can spend in free agency.
Pettine: [calming down] All right Ray, I can use it. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.
♦♦♦
Kevin Sumlin, Manziel’s former coach at Texas A&M, comes to visit Berea after the Aggies finish up their bowl game.
Sumlin: I came to get my boy.
Farmer: Your BOY?
Sumlin: I recruited him. I trained him. I commanded him for two years at A&M. I’d say that makes him mine.
Sumlin turns towards Pettine.
Sumlin: You picked the wrong man to push.
Pettine: No, Sumlin. HE picked the wrong man!
Sumlin: That boy’s a heart attack! He may be the best the Aggie ever trained. Anything you’re gonna throw at him, he’s been through a hundred times worse! In WORSE places than this!
Pettine: Well, we all appreciate your concern, Coach. I will try to be extra careful!
Sumlin: Strictly speaking, he slipped up. You’re lucky to not have your whole life strewn across the internet.
Pettine: That’s just great. Coach, you came out here to find out why one of your machines blew a gasket!
Sumlin: You don’t seem to want to accept the fact you’re dealing with an expert in guerrilla tweeting, with a man who’s the best, with emojis, with sub-tweets, with his selfies. A man who’s been trained to ignore shame, ignore embarrassment, to live off his parent’s wealth, to drink things that would make a senior fraternity man puke. In College Station his job was to dispose of SEC defensemen. Period! Win by attrition. Well, Manziel was the best.
♦♦♦
Manziel walks in and says hello to his old coach.
Sumlin: It’s good to hear your voice, Johnny. It’s been a long time. Look John, you’ve done some damage here, they don’t want anymore trouble. That’s why I’ve come. I want to come in there and fly you the hell out. Just you and me. We’ll work this thing out together. Is that fair enough?
Manziel: Where did you come from, Sir?
Sumlin: College Station.
Manziel: I tried to get in touch with you, but the guys at A&M never knew where to find you.
Sumlin: You know I haven’t been spending much time there lately. They’ve got me recruiting.
Manziel: I wish I was back in College Station now.
Sumlin: We’ll talk about that when you come in.
Manziel: I can’t do that, Sir.
Sumlin: Look John, we can’t have you running around out there posting viral videos and embarrasing friendly coaches.
Manziel: There are no friendly coaches!
Sumlin: But I’m your friend Johnny! I was there with you knee-deep in the SEC West. I covered your ass more than once. Seems like bailing you out of trouble’s got to be a life-time achievement for me.
Manziel: There wouldn’t be no trouble except for that king-shit head coach! All I wanted was something to eat. But the man kept pushing Sir.
Sumlin: Well you did some pushing on your own John.
Manziel: They drew first tweet, not me.
Sumlin: Look Johnny, let me come in and get you the hell out of there!
Manziel: They drew first tweet…
Sumlin: Johnny, are you still reading me? Aggie leader to Drunken Master! Manziel! Acknowledge!
But Manziel had already raced out of the room with phone in selfie position, cackling as he recorded…
- Except for the parts that are fake, which might just be all of it. [↩]
4 Comments
haha awesome. When reading your official transcript, I imagined a Breakfast Club dynamic.
Bode, you magnificent bastard, THAT’S GENIUS!
Haha, thanks.
https://media.giphy.com/media/fWx1D7y4ZDb7a/giphy.gif