It's Johnny Football's team now. As first reported by Jay Glazer, the Cleveland Browns will roll with Johnny Manziel for the remainder of the 2015 NFL season.
UPDATE, 11:30 a.m.: The team has made the move official. Manziel's first game as the full-time starter will come against the Baltimore Ravens.
After a game this past Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers in which Manziel managed 33 completions on 45 attempts for 372 yards, one touchdown, one interception and a 95.8 quarteback rating, the Browns are set to hand the keys of the Browns offense to their first-round pick in the 2014 NFL Draft. In three starts this season now, Manziel has thrown for 933 yards, five touchdowns and just two interceptions.
As Glazer and Albert Breer of NFL.com noted, Browns head coach Mike Pettine has informed the other quarterbacks in Cleveland - namely Josh McCown - that Manziel is now "the guy."
And really, after Manziel's performance and considering the team is sitting at 2-7 and likely has little to no chance at a playoff berth, it makes sense to see whether the one-time presumed franchise signal-caller can lay claim to the spot for good.
"He's got some stuff to be cleaned up, but if you'd asked me this a year ago, I would've been like, 'It's a great mystery; I have no idea where this guy is gonna be.' And if I were to handicap it, I'd maybe be at 50-50 with this guy, and that'd be generous," Pettine said two weeks ago, via Breer. "This year, I'm a lot more confident that if you surround him with the right people, he can be successful."
Manziel, after struggling through an abysmal rookie season, rife with reports of his hard-partying ways and nonchalance when it came to game prep, followed it with an offseason of - hopeful - redemption. A self-imposed rehab stint was followed by a move away from Cleveland's downtown bar area and, by most teammates' accounts Manziel had taken a big step forward in his maturation process.
Still, Manziel found himself on the bench to start the season, but it wasn't long into the Browns' 2015 opener against the New York Jets that Manziel got his first taste of action, after McCown was injured on a goal line leap.
Now, after a strong effort against the Steelers, Manziel will be the one leading the offensive charge for Cleveland. If he can shake off his rookie season and settle into his role as a starter, he can, quiet a lot of the criticism of his NFL career thus far and the regime, led by Pettine and GM Ray Farmer that selected him.
With strong play to close out the season Manziel can also, potentially, alter the fortunes of the Browns franchise and set it on a new course toward success, the likes of which fans in Cleveland haven't seen or enjoyed in decades.
