For everything that went Tennessee’s way last week at Tamp Bay, the Titans’ trip to Cleveland left them feeling empty.
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Their first scoring play didn’t come until the 1:36 mark of the third quarter, when Mariota found tight end Anthony Fasano in the endzone for a 19-yard touchdown.
Manziel finished 13 of 24 for 182 yards for the Browns. Offensive coordinator John DeFilippo told ESPN that he saw clear progression from previous year and he displayed his excitement.
Marcus Mariota’s back was reddened from body blows, his left ankle swollen. Nothing is easy in Cleveland.
Manziel did none of those things in his first National Football League start late last season. “Obviously his ankle was bothering him a little bit and he still made a lot of plays”.
Like the quarterback the Browns hope he can be.
He promptly hurled the ball downfield, and into the arms of Browns receiver Travis Benjamin for 50-yard touchdown pass with just 2:52 remaining. The Titans were penalized eight times for 80 yards in the first half while the Browns were building a 21-0 lead.
Stay tuned. Neither the Browns nor Manziel are generally boring.
That being said, this week against the Titans will be the most important game in Manziel’s life. I am not looking anything past this game, anything past the next week.
“If you just woke up from a couple years of sleep, didn’t know anything and watched the game with the sound off, you wouldn’t know that he was a rookie”, said Browns coach Mike Pettine, whose defense will try to shut down the 2014 Heisman Trophy victor on Sunday.
Manziel made his case on the field. He completed 21 of 37 passes for 257 yards and two touchdowns. I’m confident that we learned from our mistakes.
Manziel remains a work in progress, but he’s already given the Browns more in two weeks than all of 2014. Manziel took it from there, throwing the ball as far as he could so Benjamin could run under it. He tied Hall of Famer Fran Tarkenton in that record, but Mariota also did it in just one half of play. “There’s no reason to get too high about it or too low”.
The one good aspect in all of this is that Manziel has practiced with the first team all week and looked better – if still not good – against the New York Jets last week when called upon after McCown was knocked out of the game. On the day, Manziel connected on only 53 percent of his passes for 172 yards but he had the two TDs, 11.5 yards per attempt and a quarterback rating of 133.9 for the first win of his short career.
Mariota played most of the second half on a sprained ankle, which limited Tennessee’s game plan.
Needing two scores, Mariota drove Tennessee inside Cleveland’s 20 in the final minute but was sacked and stripped by defensive end Armonty Bryant. Not bad for a player who entered training camp with no guarantee of making the roster and who has overcome a serious knee injury.
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He didn’t have much rhythm in the first half, even though he hit on 8 of 16 passes for a meager 71 yards.
