Money on the Bench
"Johnny Manziel threw for 172 yards, 2 touchdowns, and won his first NFL game. Josh McCown is 36, has thrown only two more touchdowns then interceptions in his career (61-59), and I would be shocked if he has ever won a game of Twister, much less anything in the NFL. Why is Johnny on the bench again?!"
The question above was restated in hundreds of forms this week. From Skip and Stephen A, to lowliest street vagrant in Cleveland, everyone is wondering why after his first win Manziel is back on the bench. Is second year Head Coach Mike Pettine stupid? Do they fear for their jobs? Did Manziel flirt with Offensive Coordinator John DeFilippo's wife?
No. No. Maybe.
The reason why Manziel is being benched is because when Pettine said "Josh McCown gives us the best chance to win," he wasn't lying.
If you caught the games highlights on ESPN, which I’m assuming is how most people watched Manziel's game against the Tennessee Titans, you saw Manziel’s two deep touchdown strikes to Travis Benjamin. These passes are important, and can’t just be removed as outliers—those plays, one of which involved Manziel rolling out of a collapsed pocket and finding Benjamin on a completely broken play late in the 4th quarter—is why Manziel was drafted in the first round. That is peak Manziel, and it is very exciting that he was able to show that off in his third career start.
Unfortunately peak Manziel did not sustain itself for the entire game. I think Manziel’s performance is ¼ his coaches, and ¾ his current deficits as a NFL quarterback.
The coaching staff only asked Manziel to pass 15 times, out of which he completed 8 passes. While as I said before you can’t take away his two long touchdown strikes, the fact that he only completed 6 other passes the entire game is a cause for concern. It can be argued that his two giant TD strikes took away potential passing downs, and that it was a mistake that they asked him to pass so few times. I agree with both of those assertions, especially with the second point. In multiple drives in this game, the coaching staff ran the ball until it was 3rd & Long, leaving Manziel in a hole that Aaron Rodgers would struggle to find success in. It's hard to pass when it is 3rd & 8 and the defense knows you have to pass.
Examining his 6 Non-Touchdown Completed Passes
1st Quarter:
10:28 on the game clock
Manziel actually does a great job here. In a spread formation, Johnny looks to well-covered receivers in the left and middle of the field before checking down to Travis Benjamin on the right side. Benjamin runs a nice out route, and Manziel puts the correct amount of zip on it to make sure it isn't picked off. The play only gains 5 yards, but on a first down play, there is nothing to be upset about here.
8:48
Another peak Manziel play. A rollout on a broken play that results in a 18-yard dart to receiver Andrew Hawkins.
7:11
Manziel makes an easy, but correct read when his receiver runs a quick out route, and the Titans leave no one to cover him. While this throw isn't particularly difficult, that is not a criticism--Manziel makes the right read and picks up 17 yards. This is exactly the kind of play the coaches want him to make.
2nd Quarter
15:00
I'm not including videos for these plays because there is nothing to watch. Manziel makes a designed WR screen throw that is immediately blown up for a -3 yard loss. He didn't overthrow the receiver I guess? Not his fault, but not a lot of positives to point to on this play either.
Manziel completes only one other pass this quarter, another wide receiver screen pass. This time the receiver runs for 9 yards.
3rd Quarter:
13:23
Manziel escapes the busted pocket, and finds an open man downfield. Even more impressive is the fact that it's 3rd & 12 on this play. Every single guy on the defense knew a pass was coming, and the Titans D-Line delivered tons of pressure, but Manziel came through anyway. Also, he didn't check down to a receiver that was before the 1st down line. That might be my biggest pet peeve in the whole league--guys like Alex Smith who throw the ball 5 yards on a 3rd & 8.
But that's it. Manziel doesn't throw another pass the rest of the game until his touchdown strike to Benjamin to seal it. This has a lot to do with his two horrific lost fumbles in the third quarter. After the two turnovers, Manziel's coaches trusted him so little that they didn't even call a pass in the 4th quarter until the touchdown pass. But why didn't Manziel's coaches trust him?
A) After two horrible turnovers in 15 minutes, with a failing o-line (Titans Defensive Lineman were running through the Browns O-Line at this point in the game like it was Black Friday and Johnny was Tickle-Me-Elmo), the coaches wanted to keep the ball out of his hands as much as possible. This is reasonable.
B) His incompletions are ugly. He makes throws to heavily covered receivers, and has passes sail on him. While no one can intercept a lot of these incompletions, it's because they are so far off that even Dikembe Mutombo couldn't make a play on the ball. When looking at his cumulative game performance, it's fair to say that Manziel this week was "Boom that's a 60 yard touchdown" or "that ball wasn't even close" for many of his passes.
C) This section gets to the root of why his coaches froze him out in the second half, and why he is returning to the bench. It's because Manziel doesn't know how to play quarterback on a sustainable NFL level. Players on the team told a local Browns beat writer that at practice the week before the game, the Offensive Line stopped practice to clap and cheer because Manziel identified the mike in practice. For the uninitiated, every NFL QB at some point identifies the middle linebacker on the defense. The offensive line bases their blocking assignments off of who the QB identifies as "the mike." When you hear Tom Brady yell "52 is the mike" before a snap, this is what he is doing.
But it doesn't take a Greatest of All Time Quarterback to identify the mike--this is something that most high school quarterbacks do. The fact that the o-line is excited that Manziel was doing this in year two in the NFL shows just how far he is behind. This is a serious knowledge gap that can't be fixed in one offseason, much less a week of practicing with the starters. Also, if you were keeping score from the plays above, 2/6 of his other completed passes were literally screens. Only completing 4 non-screen passes is not a starter-level NFL QB.
Also keep in mind, the Titans went 2-14 last year, and spent their 1st round pick on a QB. Their defense did not drastically improve this offseason. They still suck. While Manziel performed well today, his coaches and team know his actual limitations far more intimately then Skip Bayless.
Manziel will return to the bench, and McCown will continue to be mediocre. But this victory gives Manziel confidence, and more importantly, film to work with and improve upon in practice. Everyone in the Browns organization knows that Manziel is the future. That's why, despite the win, Pettine feels that it won't destroy Manziel's confidence to continue to learn and improve from the bench. So don't fret Manziel-lovers. He will be back. But next time he'll be able to tell his lineman how to block the incoming blitz.