Johnny Manziel....

[Rise of The Hive]

One game at a time.

[SgtJoo]

The thing that concerns me most about Manziel is that he's making the same mistakes he did in college. All of what you're criticizing; the poor mechanics, lack of going through progressions, and phantom pressure all manifested themselves at A&M, but were mitigated by the fact that he and Mike Evans were better athletes than almost everyone else on the field. On the NFL, that's no longer true.

 

If I were the Browns coaching staff; those are the first things I would have worked on with Manziel. And it didn't seem like they had. Maybe they did and he just didn't learn. Maybe since it was his first start he was nervous and went back to old bad habits. For Browns fans, you better hope it's the latter and that he can kick those habits. Because otherwise it's probably not going to turn out well.

 

I'm not trying to suggest that Manziel played in a way that was irredeemable. For one thing, the playcalling and cast of players around him were both awful. I have no idea what they were thinking with that quad bunch and there were a lot of drops.

 

You covered the lack of downfield vision well, but I want to elaborate on Manziel's pocket presence because I feel that the ability to deal with pressure is the #1 thing that makes or breaks a QB in the NFL. For Manziel, it's concerning. There are multiple plays where he feels phantom pressure, and one directly leads to him being sacked (the play with 13:58 left in the 3rd). If you watch his A&M tape, he feels phantom pressure a lot there as well. The difference was that he was able to use his athleticism to escape and make a big play instead of getting sacked.

 

The next problem I see with him is that when he scrambles, particularly when he first brings the ball down and starts to run, he takes his eyes down and stops looking downfield. On a couple of plays he brings them up a couple of steps later, but that second where he's not looking downfield is a big issue because in the NFL a lot of times that's all a receiver is going to be open for.

 

The final problem I have is the way he scrambles. He loses all composure and starts running with the football. This is what leads to the poor footwork you're talking about. A QB who deals with pressure well slides in the pocket, so he can have his feet set and throw in a split second. Watch how pretty much any of the top tier QBs play. How they deal with pressure is almost imperceptible sometimes because they will just take a slight step to the right or left or forward to open a throwing lane and make a big play. The way Manziel moves in the pocket, he has to waste a whole bunch of time resetting his feet after he's done moving and that's costly because he often doesn't have the time to do that so it leads to weak throws.

 

The thing that concerns me most with Manziel is that he made the same mistakes against the Bengals as he made in college. That needs to be corrected. Particularly the feel for pressure. I'm not even sure that can be taught, which worries me.

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/2pp4li/film_breakdown_johnny_manziel/cmyrb7o

[General_Purr]

just worried about coming out weird after a huge road win. Def don't be turning the ball over giving them field position.

[csx]

just worried about coming out weird after a huge road win. Def don't be turning the ball over giving them field position.

 

Our last game was at home against the Bucs. Is that considered a huge win?

[camycamcan]

You guys are giving him that much credit he was awful and he'll probably do it again