Man, this week has been nuts, what with all of the LeBron conjecture and speculation. So much so that when I hear “my ‘sources’ say that LeBron James…” I get a sensation in my stomach similar to the one I get when I get a whiff of a green apple martini. LeBron has not said a single word about anything for the past two weeks, yet new information is seemingly surfacing every hour. Everyone wants to put a percentage on the likelihood of LeBron returning to Cleveland – 60/40, 90/10, 50/50 – the fact is that the percentage of him coming back to play for the Cleveland Cavaliers is either 100/0 or 0/100, he’s either returning or he’s not, and all we can really do is sit back, relax, and wait for HIM to tell us. Smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em. Quite frankly I cannot wait for that to happen, one way or the other.
One person whom I am sure is loving this nonsense and would be elated if Lebron were to wait until September to deliver his “decision 2.0″ is none other than one Jonathan Paul Manziel. He has gone from being the absolute apex of concentrated focus in this city to simply just another pawn in the chess game of prognosticating Lebron’s eventual landing place. No cameras in his face and no televangelists sitting in their dark rooms projecting how his traveling, drinking and making use of his newly acquired personal wealth is going to result in him being a mediocre to below-average signal caller. Honestly the only reason I can fathom that would cause me to want LeBron to drag this thing out even longer, is the prospect of not having to hear another story about Johnny double-fisting bottles of Dom Perignon with 8 of the 14 members of The Pussycat Dolls1.
Now, if you read my column Tajh Boyd Vs. Zach Mettenberger Vs. My Brain, you’d know that I am not, and never have been, a fan of Mr. John Football. With all this Lebron reporting going on I am sure Manziel is making good use of his time off the radar by discreetly disposing of the bodies of the two dead hookers from last weekend, squaring up with his bar tab by way of cell phones composed of one hundred dollar bills, and stocking up on condoms and Zimas2 in preparation for this weekend. I truly do not care about any of the baggage that comes with Manziel, he has been doing exactly what almost every other NFL player did during their own summers between getting drafted and the start of their first NFL season. Except for the fact that no other NFL rookie’s name carried the cache – or the circus – that the name Manziel carries. And that is just one of the reasons why I did not want the Browns to draft him in the first place.
Now, not wanting to draft a player simply because of the media bonanza that undoubtedly will follow that player is preposterous, I know. But that is not the case. Everything that has gone on off the field with Johnny means nothing to me, it may annoy me, but has nothing to do with how I envision John Football on the gridiron. Frankly, my postulation of him as a quarterback is a revolutionary one – I don’t think the kid can play.
For two years at College Station I watched a quarterback take snaps, run around in circles, shimmy shake and okie doke almost every defensive lineman that even got near him, then proceed to launch – the key word there being LAUNCH – the football a quarter mile into the atmosphere, watch the freakishly gifted Mike Evans go up and high-point it, then give the money sign to the camera. A very wise man told me that Johnny Manziel, Mike Evans, and Jake Mathews/Luke Joeckel were parts of a chain, and being parts of that chain made all four of them better. That you do not have one without the others. That if you have a chain made up of three links and two of them are titanium alloy and the third being aluminum, you still are not going to be able to pull much weight because the aluminum link will still break rendering the chain useless. So all three of them must be titanium alloy, right? I seriously have my doubts, but i guess we will just have to wait and see.