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In giving Johnny Manziel the starting quarterback job for the final four games of this miserable season, the Cleveland Browns needed to see one thing more than anything else: conclusive evidence.
The Browns are going into this offseason with a potential top three draft pick. Knowing there’s a decent crop of rookie QBs to be had, Cleveland needed to know, without a shadow of a doubt, what it had in Manziel. If he was going to bad, he needed to be conclusively bad. If he was going to be good, he needed to be conclusively good.
Essentially, the team couldn’t afford to have any gray area. So, with four games to prove his worth, Manziel had to do whatever he could to leave little doubt in the Browns’ plans for the future, whether it be positive or negative.
Unfortunately, with one game remaining on the schedule, Cleveland still has no idea whether or not Manziel can be the quarterback of the future. In what can only be seen as a worst-case scenario, there’s still question marks over the idea of him being someone to build around next year.
In the past three weeks, Manziel has given the Browns a lot of the same. He’s mixed in some impressive play which makes you think he could handle the job of an NFL starter. However, the problem is it’s interspersed with moments that make you shake your head, thinking he still has a ways to go in terms of progress.
This was all on display today in Cleveland’s loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. Manziel opened the game with easily his least impressive performance of the season. His footwork and pocket mechanics seemed to regress, and the Chiefs defensive rush appeared to throw him off his game. To put it bluntly, come halftime it really looked as though the Browns had no choice but to go QB in the first round next spring.
Then came the second half.
Cleveland appeared to let Manziel loose on the ground, as shades of his days at Texas A&M were on full display. He kept multiple drives alive with his legs, finishing the game with 108 yards on the ground. As a result, the passing game seemed to open up a bit, where he was able to gain more yardage through the air.
Again, though, this was yet another game where any positives Manziel brought to the table were mixed with a fair share of negatives. He overthrew wideouts on more than a few plays, never fully developing any sort of passing rhythm. There were even a handful of moments where you were forced to wonder just who he was actually throwing the ball to.
As mentioned, these mixed bag games are the last thing Cleveland needs to see from its 2014 first-round pick. With holes in seemingly every department, the hope was the team had a quarterback to work with. At the very least, the Browns had to know if the position of QB was something which needed to be addressed.
Now down to just one game remaining on the schedule, it’s safe to say Cleveland still has no idea. Manziel hasn’t done enough to make the team believe it can risk passing on a quarterback in the first round. At the same time, he hasn’t done enough to prove he simply can’t do the job.
It certainly puts the Browns in a pickle. However, you also have to wonder if not having conclusive evidence is actually proof the team has to take a quarterback first. Though Manziel has made notable progress, the fact that he still hasn’t shown whether or not he can be a starter after two years could be enough for Cleveland to decide it needs to look elsewhere.
Or does it? Perhaps the night-and-day change Manziel has made from last season to now is enough for the Browns to believe he’s at least earned another year. He’s not a sure thing, clearly, but a team in dire need of consistency across the board may just see moderate progress as enough for now.
Therein lies the problem, though. There just isn’t enough evidence to lean one way or another when it comes to Manziel. He hasn’t been terrible, but he hasn’t been great either. Cleveland will head into the offseason needing to figure out the future at quarterback, and deciding whether or not Manziel should be in the discussion is going to be one heck of a conundrum.
Casey Drottar is the Cleveland Beat Writer for www.Rantsports.com. Follow him on Twitter or “Like” him on Facebook
