Thursday, May 1, 2014

Manziel is good--and scary

I really like to watch Johnny Football play football.  Johnny Manziel will most likely be a top 5 pick in next week's NFL draft and will sell many tickets to his new team's games and to many away games, much like Michael Jordan did in all the visiting cities his Chicago Bulls played in.
From a technical standpoint, he throws the ball really well.  He has the quickest release of all the QB's in the draft and has plenty of arm strength to be successful in the NFL.  Manziel's biggest problem is that much of what made him Johnny Football at Texas A&M is exactly what will make his NFL career an abbreviated one.  Mike Holmgren recently said he is a lot like Brett Favre and I agree very much.  Manziel's "gunslinging" style makes for great watching, but for big mistakes as well.  I believe Manziel is a better, more pure thrower than Favre and will make less mistakes overall.  It took Holmgren a long time to take some of Favre's wild plays out of his game and to a Super Bowl victory.  Favre continued to make great plays and some really bad ones as well as his career continued on what seemed like forever.  Unfortunately for Manziel, I think it is his overall style of play and lack of physical size (girth) that will give him a much shorter career than Favre, who played through much pain, but avoided the big injury that hit RGIII, the last phenom to hit the NFL.
I was wrong about Allen Iverson when he went into the NBA.  He had a much longer and better career than I thought he would.  But, I am not a basketball analyst and didn't play in the NBA.
Johnny Manziel will get drafted at or near the top of next week's draft.  He will be exciting as heck to watch. And God willing he will avoid the big injury, but like Michael Vick, who depended on his legs so much, Manziel will struggle to stay on the field full time.  So, whoever does draft him better really like their backup QB, because it's a good bet that he will be your starter more often than you would like.

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