Manziel sticking to his backup role

By Mary Kay Cabot

Northeast Ohio Media Group

BEREA

Johnny Manziel hasn’t fantasized about getting off the bench this week against the Raiders, despite Brian Hoyer’s worst career game in Jacksonville and fans calling for his job.

“I’m still just playing my role what these coaches have for me, so I don’t think it’s any eagerness or urgency or anything,’’ said Manziel. “If the time down the road comes where it’s my time to get in the gameplan, then when that chance is, I think I need to capitalize on those moments.’’

Besides, Manziel isn’t about to go stirring the pot by saying he’d like to contribute even in some small way.

“I think there’s been enough drama around me and my life for a couple of years now,’’ he said. “So for me, I know whenever camp was over and we got into the roles of who was going to play what role, Brian was named the starter and I was named the backup, and now I need to play my role of the backup and that’s that.’’

He said it’s not his place to pipe up and say he wants to play.

“I don’t really know if that’s my role right now,’’ he said. “I’m just staying in my own lane trying to get better.’’

Manziel defended Hoyer, who against Jacksonville completed only 16 of 41 attempts for 215 yards with no touchdowns and one interception for a career-low 46.3 rating. Hoyer, in his first full game without Pro Bowl center Alex Mack, also lost a fumble after a sack. The outing toppled him from No. 8 in the NFL with a 99.5 rating to No. 22 at 88.0.

“Anytime you go out being in the quarterback position and you play well, you get more credit than you deserve and when you play bad you get more blame than you probably deserve,’’ said Manziel. “If you go back and look at the tape, it was a complete team effort for us to go out and play the way we did, and I wouldn’t hinge that on any one person anywhere on the offense.’’

Manziel watched Hoyer stand up this week and assure his teammates that they won’t see the same Hoyer again that they saw last week in Jacksonville, where the Browns lost 24-6 to an 0-6 team.

“He obviously let all of the offense know in a meeting, he doesn’t want to feel like that again,’’ Manziel said. “He doesn’t want to be down like that, so he’s made strides to try and make sure that doesn’t happen again.’’

Manziel said he didn’t see the same angry Hoyer around the Browns facility that he was at home in the days after the loss.

“That’s obviously Brian at home and away from here, but when we see him here, he’s working on trying to get better, going back and looking over everything that happened,’’ said Manziel.

Manziel said he didn’t know the coaches briefly discussed putting him in late in the Jacksonville loss.

“I wasn’t told anything,’’ he said.

He declined to grade his progress in the scheme.

“I don’t know if it’s my job or my place to sit here and measure how I’m doing every week,’’ he said. “When you sit and look at the plays and they spring in your head a lot quicker, you don’t have to sit there and picture in your mind and move everything around, it comes a lot more naturally, that’s progress for me. And obviously I feel like I’m throwing the ball better week by week and still continuing to work on my mechanics. Little things that add up will go a long way for me.”

Offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan acknowledged that Manziel has come a long way since the last time he was on the field for that one catch against the Ravens on a trick play that was called back on a penalty.

“The more time he gets, the better he’ll be, especially since he works hard and he takes his reps seriously whether it’s on the scout team or whether it’s the reps we give him with the ones,’’ said Shanahan. “Johnny has been working hard, working on his technique, studying the game and getting used to NFL coverages more and how NFL defenses play us each week. It’s been good for him to watch Brian each week and see how defenses change and how our concepts have to change and how we adjust.’’

Shanahan said the discussion in Jacksonville was never about Manziel jumpstarting the offense mid-game.

“Once the game is over, you always discuss putting in your backup players, not just at the quarterback position but all the positions,’’ he said. “We did discuss it as the game dwindled down. Then once they got a first down, we knew they were going to be able to run the clock out, so it quickly ended.”

Does he think Manziel might’ve sparked the offense?

“I don’t know. He’d have a chance to. Anybody would who would have gone in, but it wasn’t just Brian,’’ said Shanahan. “None of us played well. It was all of us. I’d hate to do that to a guy – put it just on one person.”

He said he’s not sure yet how ready Manziel is for that kind of action.

“You never know until it happens,’’ he said. “You find that out. We work on it every week in practice. We try to put him in all those situations so that when the time comes, he is ready. We’ve gotten him in for a series once this year. Like I say every week, there’s always a possibility (that) we could get him in. Hopefully when the time does come, he’ll be ready.”