Today’s showdown with Cleveland will be the first game Schaub plays this season, but the veteran is no stranger to being a starter as he had that role in his stint with the Houston Texans.
Advertisement
Manziel’s benching comes in the wake of a video surfacing of him holding a bottle of champagne and rapping profane lyrics last weekend in an Austin, Texas, nightclub.
Josh McCown will start when the Browns (2-8) host the Baltimore Ravens (3-7) on Monday Night Football. Manziel is next on the depth chart and that could mean he doesn’t get to put on his uniform.
“Just being around here, I feel like I haven’t been in the huddle with a lot of guys, but a lot of the guys that are playing I have been in the huddle with on the look team”, he said.
Manziel is 1-4 as a starter over two seasons.
Browns offensive coordinator John DeFilippo said he supports Pettine’s decision to bench Manziel “100 percent”. Pettine saw the old video, convinced the owners, managers, and everyone else in the organization that this was embarrassing to the Browns franchise as a whole and that Manziel needed to be punished, and then threw him to the bottom of the barrel before arguably the team’s easiest game of the season at home against the Joe Flacco-less Baltimore Ravens. Nobody’s telling him to sit in the house and twiddle his fingers on the bye week, from what I understood Pettine specifically asked him to not be out in the spotlight as best he could.
Still, Manziel’s potential makes him an intriguing prospect in Cleveland. He has not spoken to reporters since his demotion.
“To say that Johnny Manziel won’t play again this season, I’m not ready to say that”, DeFilippo said.
“It’s disappointing”, he said. “I wish we were doing a little better right now”.
In the span of about three days, none of which included a game being played, Manziel went from starting quarterback to the No. 3 quarterback. I think we’d all agree on that. The quarterback has had more off-the-field issues than Cleveland wants to deal with.
Asked what keeps him motivated during a losing season, Tabor delivered an impassioned response that might have been his longest answer in any press conference this season. “There is no doubt in my mind that Johnny is going to bounce back”. Pettine added that they did give Manziel a warning about engaging in off-field activities before their bye week. I was glad to see when they tried to push Cam around, he fought back.
That said, the situation does create an opportunity for others. “Even the jump he made from the Cincinnati game to the Pittsburgh game was a huge jump”.
The Baltimore Ravens and the Cleveland Browns go head-to-head on Monday Night Football and both sides have a combined five wins between them entering week 12.
“I don’t think they’ll cut him before the end of the season”, Cabot wrote, “but they’ll probably part ways sometime in the offseason”.
Advertisement
“You have a vision of what you want the team to look like, how you want them to handle themselves when they’re out of the building”, he said. “All I know is this week and we’re really fortunate to have Josh, a guy who’s played well for us against this team”.
