Club Shay Shay - Johnny Manziel Part 2 REWIND

Johnny Manziel continues the conversation with self-awareness of the spectacle that followed him in college and acknowledges the tens of millions of dollars he might have garnered in today's NIL era and passionately advocates for the NCAA to return Reggie Bush his Heisman Trophy. Johnny answers if the infamous "Drake Curse" is real, and Manziel explains why he couldn't have played for the Dallas Cowboys. Lastly, Money Manziel apologies to Skip Bayless, Drake, and LeBron for not reaching the heights they expected him to during his NFL career. This episode goes into overtime with the amount of sports anecdotes, reflections, and humorous confessions Johnny offers as signal caller.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thank you for You're coming back. Part two is underway.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
You win to housing as a freshman, you come back
your sophomore year, and you have some issues. We start
the season off with, well, it's reported that Johnny Manziel
signed five four thousand items and this and that allegedly
allegedly allegedly Johnny side four thousand items for free. So

(00:27):
John here, you got you? Why put yourself in that
situation where it can be allegedly.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
I gotta head on my shoulders. Man, I'm smart enough
to know what's going around me. I'm seeing the money
fly around me like I'm not walking through that same bookstore,
watching those number two jerseys fly off the shelf, break
me off.

Speaker 4 (00:51):
Where I cut.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
It's everywhere else for everybody else. Yes, I got seven
hundred dollars a month coming in on stipend. That ain't
enough for me.

Speaker 4 (01:02):
To do it? You mean selling bands of money company?

Speaker 3 (01:04):
I needs seventy bands, seven seventy How the hell I am?
I travel to Miami with seven bands? What are we
doing with seven bands?

Speaker 4 (01:16):
Here? I need seventy? Wow? Let me ask you this.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Let's just say, for the sake of argument, when Johnny
Manziel his Heisman Trophy season and the season after the nil.

Speaker 4 (01:28):
Isn't existence how much Johnny how much Johnny Football.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
Get Probably ten million a year, I could have done
five on my own with the Instagram. I could have
done five million a year on my own just to
the people and connections I had on my phone. That's
what a lot of people don't understand is during this
time and during this rise, and a lot of where
my downfall probably came from is you know, I get
on my phone and get on Twitter and be like, yo,

(01:52):
Shannon Sharp, just follow me, Come on, James Harden Drake
Lebron and you partied with him. I'm a I'm a
DM away from being Rockets courtsided. I'll be there in
an hour and a half. My access that I had
to the world and people that I wanted to be
around was limitless, or just my cell phone in a

(02:16):
house and college station.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Had Johnny Manziel been a little bit more discreet, you
probably still could have gotten that ten But because ig
and you posted it, you ad lib and you all
these places with the star.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
They're like, man ain't nowhere here.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
No college athlete have that kind of access unless he getting.

Speaker 4 (02:39):
Broke off my family's rich.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, and so is that. And see you played to
it because you could use that. You know Johnny doing that. Man,
Johnny wouldn't take no money. His family rich, Well, little
did they know Johnny ain't worth fifty million dollars like
being reported.

Speaker 4 (02:56):
Correct.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
So I wasn't discreet at that point in my life.
I wasn't calculated. I wasn't precise in how I was moving.
I was nineteen years old. I don't know nothing about
the real way of the world. I don't know nothing
about that happens in Miami. I'm a young naive kid

(03:18):
out here trying to get a bag on my own, right.
I don't know nothing, and I can't tell my parents,
can't tell my coaches, don't got nobody to bounce this
information off of. And this is the point where I
start like reclusing to myself and like a big problem
in my life, Shannon has been. I wake up every

(03:39):
day for the last ten twelve years and do exactly
as I please and exactly as I want every single day.
And as I'm moving forward in my life right now,
I believe that as a man in life, to humble
yourself and to be able to get to where you
want to go. You have to do things that you
don't want to do right, You have to do things

(03:59):
that make you uncomformfortable. You can't just wake up and
go down this path of Lottie Da. I'm gonna do
everything as I please in that moment of time. That's
gonna make you soft, that's gonna make you you got
all these things that come with that. In my opinion,
if you go out and put yourself in uncomfortable situations,
if you go out and work hard for what you want,

(04:19):
which isn't the most glorified way all the time. You know,
it's not fun to go work hard and put your
time and your effort into something, especially something you may
not really love truly deep down to your core. So
you know what I've learned in life is, you know,
make yourself uncomfortable, two things that you don't want to
do to help others, you know, be selfless, find a

(04:41):
way to give back more than just thinking about yourself.
And I'm sitting here today saying, at nineteen years old,
I was only about self. You know that first year
as my heisman year, there was a lot less of that.
I have my camaraderie with the team, and I was
a leader. I was there for my dogs. And then as

(05:02):
that shifts, I became a bad teammate, I became a
bad role model. I became a bad example for what
a Texas A and M University football player should be
and an ambassador for my school at that point in time.
And I still to this day hold a lot of
shame about things that I did from nineteen to twenty seven,

(05:23):
twenty eight years old, shame shannon to where I couldn't
sleep at night, to where I went into the LA
and the Hollywood Hills and I hid hid from everybody
except the TMZ cameras in the middle of the night.
And that for me is taking a decade to come
to terms what happened in my life and what I
did to myself, because at the end of the day,

(05:43):
I don't have anybody to blame but myself. My mom
and dad didn't raise me to be that, and I
coached someone to coach Kingsbury or any of those guys
at Texas A and M didn't raise me to be
that way. My teammate sure as hell didn't push me
down that path of being there.

Speaker 4 (05:57):
So why did it happen?

Speaker 3 (05:58):
You know that was the question that have taken me
a decade to find out what makes me who I
am and coming to terms and accepting who I am
the good Okay, great, that's awesome, that's unequivocally me the bad. Okay,
Let's find out and identify what that is and be
better bit by bit, day by day to ensure that what.

Speaker 4 (06:22):
Happened in the past it ain't gonna happen again moving forward.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
If Johnny Football persona had never been created, do you
still go down that path?

Speaker 4 (06:35):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (06:36):
I do without a doubt, from that day in Kerrville,
you know, from getting to there and being that guy
and like getting a rise out of it and getting
notoriety and people coming around you.

Speaker 4 (06:46):
It's fame is a it's a drug.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
It's addictive.

Speaker 4 (06:50):
Oh, it's a high. It's just chase the dragon of fame.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
Man, you chase the dragon a clout and it is very,
very addictive.

Speaker 4 (06:57):
And it is a problem that I dealt with in
my life.

Speaker 3 (06:59):
And if you would have asked me in twenty fourteen
or fifteen, I'd have been like, nah, because for a
long time I didn't see myself as the true level
of fame of what I really was who damned you.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
Out for those autograph signing.

Speaker 3 (07:12):
Somebody damned jobs when they got stuck with a lot
of merch a lot of stuff that they couldn't sell.
And then from there they got stuck with maybe like
twenty thousand dollars worth of product, and the compliance department
was cracking down on indie autographs to run eBay and
this and that, so they lost their avenue of how
to get rid of their product right, and they got stuck.

(07:33):
And the guy went to the University of Texas was
in Houston. He blew the whistle and then it all
started to crumble down.

Speaker 4 (07:40):
And it happened quick.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
If you'd have had somebody behind the scenes working because
Texas say and them is those boosters. They want what
you gave them. You gave them a Hidsman Trophy. You
almost led them to a national, you know, a national championship.
If you'd have had somebody working behind the scenes, he said, look,
let's keep this kid happy. This is all it's going

(08:04):
to take. Because you mentioned your dad, you said told
Kevin something. You didn't know anything about this. For three
mil that's a drop of the bucket considering that you
could have made ten so I'll say, like, for five million,
he'll stay, won't ever say a word about this, And
you say, Kevin something looked at him like, bro, we're
gonna keep this train rolling Without Johnny.

Speaker 3 (08:25):
I needed Cliff. I needed Kingsbury for that situation to
go in a perfect way.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
So you need a Cliff to be your offensive coordinator.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
Because he left, I needed Cliff to be my offensive coordinator,
and I needed a Cliff to be that role model
in my life. And when I got to out of
whack because that first year, my freshman red shirt, my
heisman year, I was skirting the line. But every time
I started to get here, he would pull you back,
every time focus and I looked him from that day

(08:55):
he came on the high school field to come look
at me and tell me he couldn't offer me. I
had a trust with him and a bomb with him,
and I still have to this day. And when he left,
the fuck sucked.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
I'm looking at this.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
They said they sold forty five million, number two Texas
A and m.

Speaker 3 (09:16):
Adidas church maybe forty five million in revenue, forty five million,
a lot of jerseys.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
Texas well, okay forty five And so if Dady gave you.
Say here, Johnny, were gonna get you five percent, I'll
take ten, Damn, Johnny, could five percent is morech better
than what you get.

Speaker 4 (09:33):
You're right, You're right, You're right. Okay, five five.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
But when you see when you see Texas ad them
making forty five million in Jersey sales and Johnny Manziel
is getting seven seven hundred dollars in a stipend, that
doesn't say it right with you?

Speaker 4 (09:45):
Does It didn't?

Speaker 2 (09:48):
So you start concocting the way how you can get
you how you can get some of that pie.

Speaker 4 (09:52):
Exactly, I got my pie. But you knew, you knew
that it was wrong.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
You knew that you could get yourself in trouble and
potentially the university.

Speaker 3 (10:02):
But at that point in time, what, Yes, I knew
that it was against the rules. I know that I'm
putting myself in a position that may not work out
well for me or my university. But at that time,
once again going back to selfish Johnny Manziel, I'm thinking
about how they get that. I'm trying how do I

(10:23):
get that stipend bumped up? Type of like I'm thinking
about the money at this point, Like I don't expect myself,
even after winning the Heisman Trophy to be able to
go get drafted. I didn't know if that was a
sure thing to go to the NFL draft or be
able to make any money. So I know what I
needed then I needed more money. And you know with
that money that I got as well, you know, I

(10:46):
took care.

Speaker 4 (10:47):
Of my dogs in the locker room.

Speaker 3 (10:49):
You know, in a big college locker room, there's dudes
in there that sending half their stipend or all their
stiping back home and they're taking six to go boxes
out of the athletic facility going to the apartment and
there's no lights on, you see, And this is what
I see. People come from all different walks of life
that walk into these locker rooms. You don't come from Kerville, Texas,

(11:10):
from the suburbs all the time. Yeah, they come from
the trenches.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
And I bond with people that come from nothing. Me
and Mike Evans like this. He's from Galveston, Texas, born
on the island. It is no joke down there. Where
he's from is a different way of life. And like
I've seen because of the sport that I played, how
all these people come in from different walks of life,
and it's not as peachy as you think it may be.

(11:35):
It's not all rainbows and butterflies out there for some
of these kids that come in and it's tough. And
I took care of my dogs. Right now, all this
money didn't just go to me. A lot of it did.
But if my boys needed something, they got it. And
if I wasn't there at that club, that tab at
the club.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
Was picked up.

Speaker 4 (11:53):
Always did your parents know you was getting this money? Oh?

Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yeah, cause you breaking them off too? Huh? How you
lay break mom and dad?

Speaker 4 (12:03):
Though? Mom and dad are doing fine.

Speaker 3 (12:06):
Mom and dad are living at the biggest golf course
in town. Dad's got his best job he's ever had.

Speaker 4 (12:11):
Right, what you want? Did you have him get the job? No?
My dad's independent on his own to be able to
go do that.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
I'm sure my name and what was going on, of course,
might have helped it, but you know, I was finding
out and it was like hard to just be like,
what do you do with this cash? You know what
I can't? Well, you got your book a flight? How
are you gonna go somewhere?

Speaker 4 (12:34):
Like? What do you do with caw? Do you check
into a hotel. How you do this? So it was like,
do you have any credit cards? You ain't getting no
credit card, Johnny.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
I ain't know nothing out of credit card until I
got to Cleveland, Ohio.

Speaker 4 (12:43):
I know nothing.

Speaker 3 (12:44):
I would go buy American Express gift cards for a
thousand bucks in cash and then have that, and then
I got to keep track of how much is on
every balance and stuff I'm going through AMEX gift cards
like this going out of style. So I didn't know
anything about a credit card. I don't know anything about
credit nothing thing.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
Let's all Reggie Reggie Bush, similar situation. I guess his
parents took some money over there, were living in a house,
and he ended up having his Heisman trophy taken from me.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
Do you believe Reggie should get a higemotrophy back?

Speaker 4 (13:15):
Without a doubt? It's legal now.

Speaker 3 (13:19):
What Reggie did then is legal now that somebody could
do it wouldn't make him ineligible now, even though it
did at the time, and in the grand scheme of things,
I probably did way worse than Reggie. And everybody's gonna
sit here and be like, why does he still have
his heis member?

Speaker 4 (13:35):
Reggie doesn't.

Speaker 3 (13:35):
I can tell you the exact reason why I explained
this on Twitter and people didn't really understand it, but
the way I was told because the last three four
years I've been walking back into the Heisman, I've been
rallying the.

Speaker 4 (13:47):
Boy, talking with the guys.

Speaker 3 (13:49):
There's chatter, there's chirp going around that nobody in this
crew and this Heisman fraternity, it sits right with us
that Reggie ain't up there with us every year.

Speaker 4 (13:59):
It makes every one of.

Speaker 3 (14:00):
Us sitting there choice myth, all these guys that I
sit next to on it. He deserves to be on
that stage with us every year, unequivocally, without a doubt,
without a question, one of the best college football players
to ever lace them up, and a very very good
argument toe to be the best ever in college football.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
Do you believe he'll get his trophy back?

Speaker 3 (14:22):
What I've been told is that Reggie can't get his
Heisman trophy back until the NCAA makes his records and
his accolades on the field for that year reinstated. As
we know what the NCAAA is now, what do you
think the chances.

Speaker 4 (14:37):
Are that they're going to do the right thing?

Speaker 3 (14:41):
Not looking likely, not looking likely, And it's sad and
from the top down from the NCAA, they've been so
wrong with so many things that you would hope that
one day they would do the right thing and do this.
I'm going to continue to do everything that I can
in my power, whatever that may be. I'm just the
little guy. I'm just the old first freshman to win it.

(15:04):
I don't have no I ain't got the clout like
I used to be able to really make that happen.
But for what I can in my part, I will
always stand on this table right here for Reggie Bush
and do anything that I can in my power to
make sure that it's possible for him to even get
his trophy back.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
What's your best guess as to why coach Slaban walked
away from the game still coaching at the highest level.

Speaker 3 (15:27):
I think the NIL has changed everything for what he's known,
you know. I think it's made it so much more
hands on and continually having to stay on these guys
because of how many people are in their ear. It's
not it's not the firm handshake anymore. It's not the
old school ways in the world where your word is
your bond and this and that is a very wishy washy,

(15:49):
where's the money today?

Speaker 4 (15:50):
Right? And if it's today, somebody who can now bid you?
Where's your loyalty? Just sixteen seventeen year old kids were
talking about here, right.

Speaker 3 (15:58):
So in my opinion, Saban doesn't want to deal with
it anymore, and what better way than to go out
the way that he did. You know, from what I've
seen and what I saw in the media, he's still
very involved in the program. I mean, he retires and
then goes back into the office. It worked the next day.
So Nick Saban is hit. He's him. He is exactly
what you expect him to be. And when I met him,

(16:22):
you know, in New York that second year of twenty thirteen,
when I went back, I remember him walking into the room.

Speaker 4 (16:27):
Aj mccerrn was a finalist, I think, and I don't think.
I think Aj was a finalist.

Speaker 3 (16:35):
And he walks into the room and it's just like
I remember, like this cloud, huge aura of a person
walking in. You know, he's not that big, but like
the way he carries himself and the aura that he
has around him is like nobody you're ever.

Speaker 4 (16:51):
Going to come in contact with.

Speaker 3 (16:53):
And I remember him walking into the room and shaking
his hand and talking to him for a second, and
then that conversation kind of fades and we go on
about then and for the rest of my life, I'll
never forget that moment and him walking in that guy.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
Is it a situation now with the nil No matter
how great a coach is. You see in basketball, coach
k walks away, Roy Williams walks away some of the
pantheon greats. It's like, so, now it's really a level
playing field because Alabama is like, Okay, we're gonna put
you in the NFL. But now somebody say, well, they
gonna put you in the NFL, but we're gonna give

(17:26):
you two million dollars. So now it has it leveled
a playing field or has it created an unequal playing field?

Speaker 3 (17:34):
There was already an unequal playing field. I feel like,
so if anything, it's given the littler guys a chance.
It gives the Colorado's right, Yeah, get a guy like Prime,
take your program from here to here.

Speaker 4 (17:45):
You're getting a little bit more level. You're at the
transfer portal.

Speaker 3 (17:49):
You know, Colorado can now take people from Alabama or
Georgia that don't want to go there, just based off
the transfer portal, So I think it's brought it up
and made a little even you know, college fotball goes
in those waves of like you got your Florida Dynasty,
your USC one, you have Texas with a little run
in there. You know, you got your oh House today,
you got your Bama's, Bama Georgia, you have your runs

(18:13):
of Like I didn't want to go on this whole
sec tangent all biased, it is what it is. So,
I mean, there has always been teams every year throughout
the year that are a little bit above and below
the others. You can always have the little guy that
comes up and has that magical run. But for the
most part, you know, it is a little lopsided. It
is hard for those acrons or bowling like it is

(18:36):
harder for those D one lower schools to ever really
get in the conversation. And in my opinion, I think
this is a better way or only way that they
can really ever even recruit on the same level as
anybody else, and that'll mostly be through the transfer portal.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah, but do you see these teams now you see it,
probably Alabama and Ohio State and Michigan and all these teams.
They're like they're probably going to their boostools or they
going to the college. They look, man, we gotta have
a fund. We gotta have twenty five thirty million dollars
in order to get these kids. And now you see
look and talking to coach Prime is like, you know,
you see guys going into the portal. Because these guys

(19:12):
have already been in college and so you kind of know, Okay,
they understand the college. They got to go to class,
they got to go to study hall. They've already played
college ball and played at a high level.

Speaker 4 (19:23):
So it's a little.

Speaker 2 (19:24):
Easier for you to break a guy off that's coming
that's in the portal because you know, look at Addison,
he wins the ballitna call.

Speaker 4 (19:32):
Any changing school. That's unheard of.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
You would have never got a guy that wins the
buckets or win an award do you award like that,
the girls skill or whatever the case may be.

Speaker 4 (19:42):
The Thorpe and transfer school.

Speaker 3 (19:45):
Johnny, what if I told you that after Cliff Kingsbury
left and I won the Heisman, that I thought about
maybe going somewhere else too.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
How much it was it gonna take for them to
break you off, for you to even get for you
to even consider it.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
I don't know at that point in time. You know,
I was thinking about like, you know, I love d
A and M and I, but this way that like.

Speaker 4 (20:04):
Could you feel the shift? Could I feel the shift?
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (20:08):
I could see that I was getting used a little
bit into what they needed me to do to have
their master plan right. A and M had their vision
of what they needed with this hype and the success
to get the program as a whole where they needed
to be. Unfortunately, where they needed to go and where
I needed to go and grow as a human being

(20:29):
and as a football player weren't always step in step.
They weren't always aligned. Do I have hard feelings about
it or do I feel any kind of way about
it right now?

Speaker 4 (20:38):
Absolutely not. I love my school. I love what happened.

Speaker 3 (20:42):
I love walking back into that stadium and feeling like
I had a piece of putting one of these bricks
in the walls outside and I can carry myself and
say that things. I don't think it's the House of Johnny,
but that's what they call it. They can call it
what they want. Like it's disrespectful to Mike Up, that's
disrespectful to Jake Matthews.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
Well, Mike Evins. They didn't call Mike Evans the Mike football.
They call you Johnny football. They didn't call Jake Matthew
the Luke Joko. Okay, So I get football.

Speaker 3 (21:12):
I get the praise for what we do as a
team because my player is special on the field.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
Let me ask you a question. When you're a little kid,
they're like, all right, who want to play online?

Speaker 4 (21:20):
Raise your hand? Who want to play dB?

Speaker 2 (21:22):
Raise your hand? Who want to play quarterback? Exactly? They
chose the position that.

Speaker 4 (21:28):
So it's a positional things you're giving the quarterback. Then, yeah,
it's a rightful piece of the pie.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
Which one of those guys was flying private? Probably just okay?
Who is playing jewelry cards?

Speaker 4 (21:40):
Probably just me? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (21:41):
Well who was hanging with Drake and James Flinton Courts
out of James Harden. That's definitely yes, here's the half
of Johnny Bill.

Speaker 4 (21:48):
Okay, So you put it that way. I mean, you
ain't never gonna get me to admit it too.

Speaker 1 (21:53):
But help me understand this, John.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
I'm trying to figure out how you get suspended for
half a game.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
I mean that, like I almost suspend you from school.

Speaker 2 (22:02):
But you don't have to come to first, second to third,
but you get to come fourth, fifth, and sixth.

Speaker 4 (22:06):
You know what I asked.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
I asked if I could be suspended for the second
half because we'd be up so much in the first right.

Speaker 4 (22:12):
They said no.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
I mean, so, what was it like knowing that you're
not gonna play the first half and then you got
to come in?

Speaker 1 (22:21):
I mean, you come in cold the second half.

Speaker 3 (22:23):
Nerve racking, really, really the height of any nerves that
I've ever had, other than that Bengals game that I
started my first game in the NFL. Crazy nervous, so
much the first play that we drew up this beautiful
bunch formation with the outside motion coming in, and we
knew we were gonna get him in the trail, and

(22:44):
we knew it split. We knew we'd do the scissor
off in quarters. He's gonna take that corner for sure,
and we're gonna bust right down the middle. I catch
the ball, take three steps and I'm seeing red at
this point. I dropped back and the line opens up,
and I just see this one linebacker and I'm just
looking at him down in the eyes and like I'm.

Speaker 4 (23:03):
Not even seeing nothing back here, right me? Man, you
come on.

Speaker 3 (23:07):
And that was how I started my games in college.
And we started with so many running plays because when
I got hit the first time and I got a pop,
it settled me down to the point of where I
could go on about our offensive scheme.

Speaker 4 (23:19):
For the first day.

Speaker 3 (23:20):
So going into that game, you know, suspending the first half,
coming back out the first play of the second half,
we draw up this beautiful touchdown and it works. But
I'm just like so laser focused and locked in on
getting hit so I can kind of settle down and
go and you know, that half went fine. I don't
think we played very good football, because it's hard to

(23:41):
get that you know, flow going when you're not playing
in the first half and come in in the second.
But really, really the almost the pinnacle of my nerves
of college football in that setting.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
But Johnny, you kept signing, you kept signing autographs, you
kept partying. Did you feel those things helped you? I mean,
did you feel that you could that you fun and
you played better while doing those things.

Speaker 3 (24:02):
That's a great question, That's a really good question, because
at that point in time in my life, I felt
like the harder I partied the better that I played.
How my freshman year, Tuesdays and Thursdays were Tuesdays were
beer with the baseball boys the house playing games, and
Thursdays we're hitting North Kate, going to the town trunk
as you could get with all the dogs. Friday was

(24:24):
the walk through. I go there, we walk through at
ten am in the morning, dying. It's been like a
looking steel, like a liquor store. And then I would
go through that walk through and you can ask anybody
that was on that team and I hit those walk through.

Speaker 4 (24:40):
It's hard handing the fake.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
I'm taking off down the sideline for twenty thirty yards
running back.

Speaker 4 (24:45):
I'm sweating it out.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
You try it out.

Speaker 4 (24:47):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (24:48):
Then we get on the plane, right get to the
hotel meetings. This is the system, and we're winning right now.
We're eleven and two. We'd beat Bama. And this whole
year is Tuesday, Thursday, bang bang all week every time,
like clockwork, every game of.

Speaker 4 (25:05):
The season that year. And I'm getting better as it
goes on.

Speaker 3 (25:09):
I ain't losing a step until that first offseason in
twenty thirteen. That's when I'm starting to smoke more weed.
That's when I'm partying a lot more. And then from there,
I'm not taking care of myself in the way that
I did the year before.

Speaker 4 (25:23):
To go be special and my number is my second
year totally.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
We're better.

Speaker 4 (25:28):
We're better.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
That's what I needed to do at that point in time.
I needed to get you, guys or whoever it was
on first take or this and that talking in the
right direction, that this is these are my you know,
this guy went back and did better than he did
the year before. So therefore, what is the next step.
The next step is the league, the show, the big thing.
And that's where I was at my life. I felt

(25:51):
like I did enough for me. Okay, I was living
my life at that point in time to appease what
other people expected from me or wanted from me.

Speaker 4 (26:01):
I wasn't living really in the right way.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
I mean obviously I wasn't, but like I was there
to like tell people what they wanted to hear, and
like had these people around me. This is how you
need to carry yourself. And in that I lost who
I was. And when you lose who you are, you
resort to other things in your life to numb that
pain or to find yourself. And in that I found
smoking weed in that I found partying, and that kind

(26:31):
of took over from there. Twenty thirteen on you know,
there's no reason. There's no reason other than exactly what
my behavior was. Twenty thirteen on why twenty fourteen and
fifteen in Cleveland didn't work out. There's no secret that
I was doing the same thing on a Thursday night
in Cleveland that I had been doing for the Thursday
night in College Station number one.

Speaker 4 (26:52):
Because I'm the backup.

Speaker 3 (26:54):
I just got handed all this money and I'm not
taking it seriously enough because I don't know how to
be a profession I had no idea. Now I get
thrown into this organization with the head coach that wants
nothing to do with me from the day that I
get there, with the defensive staff that our first day
of offensive install, day one, they're running six DB's on
the field. In practice. I can't even point a fucking mike.

(27:17):
I ain't never taking a snap under center, But Jimmy
O'Neill or whatever and Mike Petton are going to come
out to the field and throw fucking eight dbs on
the field the first day of an install. Talk about
your confidence getting busted quick. Now, I feel like I
can't do what I was great at in Cleveland, and
I'm partying and doing what I thought made me great.

(27:38):
So you see how all these things are compounding together
to equal a huge disaster.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
You didn't feel you could do in Cleveland what you
had been great at Texas Lea.

Speaker 4 (27:46):
Not at all. I don't know for no confidence.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
I hear you mentioned you said on Tuesday night we
had this with the boat with the baseball team. Thursday night,
we did this with the other boys. I ain't here
nothing by no school. I was a good student.

Speaker 4 (27:59):
How I what.

Speaker 3 (28:02):
My dad when I was in high school, in middle
school growing up, if I didn't have a's or b's
on my report card and that first little six week
grade in period comes out of the three week mark,
if I got to C on that thing, I'm grounded
until I can get an A and B on that
next report card.

Speaker 4 (28:17):
That was my rules forever. So if I got to.

Speaker 3 (28:20):
See you're grounded, you ain't going nowhere, You're doing chores
around the house, I'm gonna show you what your education
is going to mean to you. So when I got
to A and M, I went from a business major
sports management and then when I went to Heisman, I
go to AG Leadership and Development. That's a little bit

(28:40):
different than the Maze Business School.

Speaker 4 (28:42):
Yeah, so now I can do my classes online. I
can do that like that was. The school was never
the problem for me.

Speaker 3 (28:49):
If I applied myself in the slightest bid, I was
smart enough to be able to go in and do college.
I wasn't ever. I wasn't one of those guys that
needed to study hall or the this and that. And
I had a lady that was in our athletic department
named Lee Hood, and Miss Hood saved my life academically,
just keeping me focused on what it was and not

(29:10):
getting too far. And she was like a true mother
to me in that football program. And she is the
reason that I was able to even leave Texas A
and M and have an opportunity to go to the NFL.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
And the thing is, Johnny, though, what I've learned is
that most good athletes, great athletes, can compartmentalize. And it
seems like you really great at compartmentalizing. Okay, party, I'm
a party, get school, get school, party, party, got practice, practice,
play play. You were able to do in each instance,
be it your absolute best or as you say it

(29:43):
on Thursday to Friday at your absolute worst.

Speaker 4 (29:46):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (29:47):
I think I was able to do that with the
people that I had around me, you know, with the
lee Hood, with these coaches and like with the right
people that Texas Ay and them did have around right.
If they weren't there, I wouldn't have had a fighting
chance at all. But because of how special some of
the people were in that building, it gave me an
opportunity to flourish in the smallest of amounts.

Speaker 4 (30:08):
When it comes to that stuff.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
I'm looking at, I read this if, like the rumor was,
you came from oil money.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
Did you have all money?

Speaker 3 (30:18):
My great grandpa when they came over, took from Lebanon.
They founded found you know oil in East Texas, and
it very much was you know, my family.

Speaker 4 (30:29):
Was very, very big, so my grandpa, he had like
six brothers and sisters. They hit this huge oil well.

Speaker 3 (30:37):
So when I'm growing up, I don't even realize that
we have a farm and tyler with a runway and
a hangar in the back and all this stuff.

Speaker 4 (30:45):
I didn't even really know what it was. My grandpa.

Speaker 3 (30:51):
Because of what my great grandpa had done, they had
the opportunity to be boys boys right take the planes.
They were big into bax seen. So like Jack Dempsey
was a huge like family friend of theirs.

Speaker 4 (31:04):
You know.

Speaker 3 (31:04):
They tell me stories about going on these hunts with
Mickey Mannle and Joe DiMaggio and all these guys, and
I've seen the pictures like it's as raal as it gets.
So you have this like what you saw for me
and the lifestyle that I was living, I think was
like minor le ingrained in me for what I saw
as a kid and what they were doing in the fifties, sixties, seventies.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
So it wasn't a far reach for you to like
to have what you have because your family did have money.
So it wasn't a stretch for you to be flying
private and doing all that stuff because your family came
from money, so you could pass it off. My dad
gave me this, So my family gave me this, and
so the incident wouldn't even battle eye.

Speaker 4 (31:45):
How could they prove it?

Speaker 1 (31:47):
They couldn't because you had I just hold on.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
Your dad said, well in twenty thirteen it said, it's
not garth books money, but it's a lot of money.

Speaker 3 (32:00):
And I don't even know the full detail of it, right,
Like I got, you know, from eighteen years old, I'm
thrust onto the spotlight. Now I have my own life
that like I'm living. It's like separate from that. Like
family stuff, it's not as cohesive anymore.

Speaker 4 (32:13):
Right.

Speaker 3 (32:14):
The fame and everything that comes with what happened to
me will break a family apart very very quick. Who
we go into the game with, who gets these tickets?
It's all about the clout on all this stuff. So
we as a family were tested and tried throughout this
rise as well.

Speaker 4 (32:31):
It wasn't just a me thing.

Speaker 3 (32:32):
And that's what I didn't realize until I got cut
in Cleveland and I was a couple of years removed
from that, and I remember thinking and hearing from my mom, like,
you don't know how hard it is for us to
walk into a restaurant in East Texas. We're dealing with
the ramifications of your actions that are going on every day.
So when you're going out here acting like an asshole,

(32:54):
I got to walk into my grocery store and get
treated like one. And why is that faarred of your father?
And I hit me like a ton of bricks?

Speaker 2 (33:03):
Is that where the change came because because you saw
the told. Not only would I mean, I don't know,
maybe you're the last person to see the toll that
it's taken on you, but when you hear your mom
tell you the tell the told that it's taken on
them because of your actions, and they shouldn't have to
suffer for what you're doing to yourself.

Speaker 4 (33:20):
It's a start. That was the start of it.

Speaker 3 (33:23):
It definitely wasn't definitely wasn't the like final thing that
got me to the point of what I'm being able
to do and sit here with you today.

Speaker 4 (33:30):
I think that's a complete.

Speaker 3 (33:34):
Understanding and self awareness of oneself. Okay, so I, without
a doubt, wholeheartedly know myself and what I've done good,
what I've done bad. I'm the only one that knows
the truth that I've seen through my eyes about everything.
So when I got to the point where I'm completely

(33:55):
detailed and honest about every situation and what went into it,
why I may have done that, that's a continuous like
evolution of a person that takes longer than five years,
you know. And I don't think I'm a finished product
right now. I just think I'm onto something mentally that
is clicking with me, allowing me to be the person

(34:16):
I think I should have been. Is this all you of?
Was therapy involved a lot of self therapy? I mean
a lot of times, and I mean twenty fourteen, after
my first season, I went and spent three months in
rehabing reading Pennsylvania, and I didn't have a normal off season.
I didn't get to like I needed to work on
myself and at this time, like I learned a lot

(34:39):
through that, and it continuously learned as I went on.
And this is a you know, collection of ten years
of not therapy every day, not therapy every week, but
a lot of Is it with yourself?

Speaker 4 (34:56):
You have to know who you are.

Speaker 3 (34:57):
You know who you are, you know you do good,
you know what you do bad. You know what you
need your team for over here to help you with
to make you the best version of yourself. And for
a long time I've been independent in the sense that
I feel like I can do it all by myself,
when in reality I need family, I need friends. I
need my team of people who want nothing from me,

(35:20):
who want nothing but the best in love for me,
and people that I can trust. Because a lot of
time in the past I didn't have people around me
that I could trust, really genuinely, truly looking out for
my best interests.

Speaker 2 (35:33):
Johnny, you mentioned that you partied, you liked to drink alcohol.
Was the heavier drugs involved other than alcohol in marijuana?

Speaker 1 (35:40):
Oh yeah, college? No, once you got to the league.

Speaker 3 (35:44):
Yes, that's when the real like hiding and reclusing started.
And man, I've given Cleveland. I've given Cleveland a really,
really hard time. And I think it's all more situation
than it is really the city itself. Being in a
fish bowl city like college station ate me up because
I couldn't move, I couldn't park my car the wrong way,

(36:07):
I couldn't do anything.

Speaker 4 (36:09):
I was always spotlight.

Speaker 3 (36:12):
And then I go to Cleveland, I signed with Lebron
and math and then and now Lebron comes back and
I'm under Lebron's wing. So now this lamp heat lamp's
even hotter on me. I'm not playing, I don't got
confidence on the field, and now I'm taking out my
anger on my day to day like interaction my team.

(36:32):
I'm struggling but not letting anybody know. Right, So, like
my whole like ripe with Cleveland is not really anything
as what I made it to be. And I think
that's just the bitterness of like how things went and
me not realizing that I did it to myself for
a long point in time.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
Do you remember the first time you tried hard drugs?

Speaker 4 (36:50):
Oh? Yeah, yeah for sure.

Speaker 2 (36:53):
What was it about it that made you try it?
Did you think because I'm Johnny Football, I can handle this.
I can do something that you know what else has
been able to do do a hard drug and be
able to steal function and do everything I need to
do even though I tried this.

Speaker 3 (37:06):
Okay, that persona that I had on the football field
of being able to have that confidence translated over into
the party scene as well. I'm the guy just like
I am on the field, in the club, in the streets.
So it's all in front of you if you want it,
and you're hanging around the wrong circles. It ain't hard
to find at all. So, you know, you get around

(37:26):
people who you think you look up to or this
or that, and then it just goes. And then it
kind of goes and it's snowballs and it keeps getting worse,
and you go from cocaine to oxy cotton to percocets
to mushrooms. I mean, I look at the mushrooms as
a different thing. Now that's not a good thing to say,
But like the harder drugs, the drugs that like tear

(37:47):
you down. I never did anything with needles, never did
anything like that. But the coke and the OxyS and
the percocet were very, very tumultuous in my life. And
like pop their had, especially the days of wandering around
the Hollywood Hills. And it makes sense why you see
me so sporadic and like I was two hundred and
ten pounds when I left Cleveland. I was one hundred

(38:10):
and seventy pounds sitting in Vegas that August, that September, October.

Speaker 4 (38:15):
Whatever it was later in that year. How you lose
forty pounds you're on a strict diet A blow.

Speaker 2 (38:20):
Oh, I was about to say, only you don't want
either one of them. I mean, you lose forty pounds
in that length of time you on crack or it
z empic.

Speaker 4 (38:30):
So that's the new thing.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
Now to Shae Toushe, you're right about that, bro.

Speaker 3 (38:36):
You At that point in time, man, I would look
in the mirror and I didn't see myself any different
than when I was in Cleveland really until I stepped
on a scale at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas.
I didn't realize I lost forty pounds wow at all
And people were hitting me up like this, and I
remember these pictures came out and I was like, damn,
what am I doing? Whatever, We'll figure that out later.

(38:58):
Let's go again, Let's go.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
So as an athlete, you're very competitive when you when
you when you do drugs, do you still have that
competitive nature? Like when you with your boys, You're like, man,
I ain't been let you one up me.

Speaker 4 (39:13):
You can't.

Speaker 3 (39:14):
I'm a tank when it comes to the party. I
mean I could party hang with the best of them.
I ain't saying not to brag. It's not something to
really say, but it's the truth and glorify, but it's true.

Speaker 4 (39:24):
You put somebody in.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
My and your that you think in your life can
really go that distance with the honey or with them,
with the drugs or whatever you want.

Speaker 4 (39:31):
I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go twelve rounds with you.
I mean, Johnny, you a small man, bro, I'm a
little thick. I guess.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
So you Drake does a song draft day? What was
it like to hear Drake mention mention you in a song.
And what was it like hanging out with Drake. He's
the big, one of the biggest slams in the world,
and here of a college kid and a young college
kid just hanging out with him.

Speaker 4 (40:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:02):
I remember when I went to Toronto for the first
time and my mom called me and I could hear
the worry in her voice. Where are you Toronto, Canada?
Do you even have a passport?

Speaker 4 (40:14):
Yeah? I took him from the safe last week when
I came by the house.

Speaker 3 (40:18):
So, like, my relationship with Drake is one that changed
my life for the better forever still to this day,
you know, a pillar of.

Speaker 4 (40:29):
My life.

Speaker 3 (40:30):
And from the first day I met him, the first
day we talked, our relationship has been pretty constant and
he rides for me as hard as anybody ever has
in my life.

Speaker 4 (40:40):
And I'm thankful for him.

Speaker 3 (40:42):
I appreciate him, and you know, I try to let
him know whenever I'm with him, how much his relationship
means to me, how much our friendship means, and like
it's the coolest thing in the world to me. From
that kid in Kerrville, Texas to be able to sit
there and walk out on the draft radio City music
all and there ain't no song playing that you like.

(41:03):
It's my song about the day that's happening now.

Speaker 1 (41:08):
Tells right.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
But what do you think when people say, Man, Drake
cursed you, because you know, there's this thing that say
that Drake has a curse that anybody is doing well.

Speaker 1 (41:16):
If Drake all of a sudden likes them, they're gonna lose.

Speaker 3 (41:20):
I believes in curses like that. That guy's the most
positive energy, great aura. Maybe he picks wrong sometimes in
the people teams or whatever it is, or his bets.

Speaker 4 (41:30):
But that's his life, right. There is no curse. That's
to each his own.

Speaker 3 (41:35):
You know, if I handle my business in a proper way,
I make him proud, right, our relationship changes like so
like that's there's a lot of.

Speaker 4 (41:43):
People that I let down.

Speaker 3 (41:44):
I truly feel like him and Lebron at a point
in time for people that I really really let down.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
You mentioned that you that Lebron and MAV you signed
with Lebron and MAP and there are people saying Johnny
Man's will be bigger than Lebron James in Cleveland.

Speaker 4 (42:02):
I think that person is skip Bayless.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
He definitely believed in you.

Speaker 4 (42:11):
It does.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
He believed in you and his thing to his credit,
when he believes in a guy yourself, Tim Tebow Baker, Baker, Yeah, Skip.

Speaker 4 (42:24):
I love you, Bro.

Speaker 3 (42:25):
I hope you know that it was always love And
I honestly feel like I let him down, right. I
remember watching first Take religiously and being able to see
him come on there and ride for me when everything
was going on. Remember seeing the passion in his voice
and the way he was animated when he would talk
about me. So when I signed, I go to Cleveland
and this you know, Johnny Manziel will be bigger than Lebron, Like, Okay,

(42:49):
you got your clickbait, you got your headlines for that
week type of thing, and it was never ever going
to be a reality. But because of me signing with
Lebron and MAV, I had the opportunity to even be
great in my own right right. They gave me the
best fighting chance and built a team around me. And
the thing that I realize now is the reason why

(43:11):
they're probably still pissed at me to this day. They
don't lose, they don't bet on anything that's not a
sure thing. And what I did, and the way I
carried myself and the way that I was and my
time during Cleveland was pure and blatant disrespect to them
for giving me everything that I could have ever needed
to be successful. So something that's still to this day,

(43:32):
I think, now that we're talking about it, I haven't.

Speaker 4 (43:35):
Completely truly got over yet.

Speaker 3 (43:37):
You know, how I let them down, And I remember,
this is how bad off I was whenever I was
in Cleveland. You know, Lebron would text me every week
to come over to the house and watch a game
or play poker with the boys and just tried to
be there. And I was so depressed for the first
time in my life that even my biggest role model
and inspiration in my life couldn't get me out of

(43:59):
bed to come and hang out with them. You know,
when I went to the Cavs games, I went, I
was in, I was out. I didn't really grasp and
latch on to him in a way that I should have,
And he tries to take me under his wing, right,
and I'm just kind of nudging it away because of
where my mental is and being just fully depressed and
where I was in my life.

Speaker 4 (44:21):
Is that an excuse? Absolutely not, because.

Speaker 3 (44:23):
At the end of the day, the respect that I
should have for them giving me everything should trump all else.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
I say, you got a lot of ink. Do you
remember your first what made you? What do you remember
your first tattoo? And how were you when you got it?
And what made you?

Speaker 1 (44:37):
Say?

Speaker 4 (44:37):
You know what?

Speaker 1 (44:38):
I won't eat all right?

Speaker 3 (44:39):
So my mom, as a kid, if you get any tattoos,
I'm gonna disown you.

Speaker 4 (44:44):
They went really hard down that route.

Speaker 3 (44:46):
And when I got to a little bit higher place
in life, I'm kind of like, let me test and
see if she's still gonna love me after this. So
I went that first esther and uh college station. I
went and got a tattoo, sat against all odds on
the inside of my arms, and I got a Proverbs

(45:07):
thing on my on my chest. John Bones Jones has
this Philippians far thirteen. I got Proverbs three five through six.
Trust trust, not trusting the Lord with all your heart,
and lean out on your own understanding and all your ways,
submit to him, and he will make your pass straight.

Speaker 4 (45:24):
And I got that.

Speaker 3 (45:25):
And I remember going to the lake house six months later,
and my mom was like, why are you jumping in
the lake with your shirt on.

Speaker 4 (45:31):
Ah, it's nothing, it's nothing.

Speaker 3 (45:36):
Finally take your shirt off, and I'm like, all right,
moment of truth. She took it pretty good for what
I expected to be honest, she kind of just went
back in the house and like, now we're at the
point where my dad's starting to get some tattoos, and like.

Speaker 1 (45:49):
Oh, you influenced him.

Speaker 3 (45:52):
I think I had a little bit of an input
in that. Like I think I've had an input in
his mind shift just to see that, Like, you know,
for if I can go through what I've been through
and still be sitting here today with the attitude and
the outlook on life that I have, and I truly
feel that anybody can. And my dad's hat his falls
in life, my mom as well, and we all do
as human beings. But like it's about never giving up,

(46:14):
and it's about keep going. Is the mantra mindset that
I use. Keep going? You know, God only gives the
toughest test in life the people that can truly handle
olers soldiers. So like, yeah, a lot of mind was
self inflicted. But I feel to a point today that
I'm here for a better purpose, for a bigger purpose,

(46:34):
maybe being a hall of fame NFL football player was
not what I was meant to be in life, and
I'm okay with that, right. I'm okay with continuing to
grow as a man and figure out exactly what makes
me tick, what my new passions are in life, and
what my new like goals are and where I want
to go.

Speaker 2 (46:53):
Is it true that you were about to fake a
flunk a drug tests had to come by and your
dad faked a medical emergency.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
I don't remember the medical emergency, but I remember having
the greatest training camp leading up to the NFL Combine,
and five six days before the combine, I drove from
San Diego to the Beverly Hills Hotel and I wanted
to go to Graystone, Manor and man West Hollywood.

Speaker 4 (47:24):
I got with some NFL.

Speaker 3 (47:25):
Boys and I went to her Mosta Beach and I
got drunk, and then I went to the club, and
I remember, as this whole day progressed on, I was
a little too lit at the club that night about one,
and I remember, as I'm kind of like in and
out of it, somebody handed me at blunt and me
really being not all there and composed, and I remember
the blunt coming up right in front of my face,

(47:46):
and I remember my immediate is like, but I couldn't
tell my agent or anybody the next day if I
actually did smoke this or not. So now it's like
full crisis mode. We're taking tests and we're doing this,
and like now the next six days are like flush
plus the system. You fail a drug test, you go
from being maybe the potential first pick in the draft.

Speaker 4 (48:08):
So we'll see you in the third round.

Speaker 3 (48:10):
And that's a five year deal turned to a four
turn to guarantee money and nothing like everything is riding
on this. So I did go into Indy with a
very very question mark on if I was going to
pass my drug test for smoking weed.

Speaker 1 (48:23):
And so so you.

Speaker 4 (48:25):
Passed, I guess I didn't smoke it.

Speaker 2 (48:27):
Wow okay, so wow, Yeah, because concerned the way you've
been partying.

Speaker 3 (48:33):
Bro, I just remember that that going to grab it. Yeah,
I remember that, and I remember, for some reason just
still locked in even if I was out of it.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
When you were coming out, there was a comparison because
of your ability to duel, threat to run and throw
the football you got compared to a little bit of
RG three, a little bit of Russell Wilson did you
like those comparisons.

Speaker 3 (48:53):
I like the Brett fav of comparisons the most, I
think because Brett shit like shaped a way of what
I wanted to be as a quarterback. You know, I
didn't know at the time, back then really until I
got out of Cleveland, of what Brett's story was in Atlanta, right,
you know, I had this Brett Varba Atlanta Falcons jersey
that I wore religiously when I was in college station
and I didn't know that he was there, and like

(49:15):
what happened and him getting to Green Bay and what
a like huge turning point and pivot it was for
him in his life. But that's you know, that's the
one that I liked the most and that I appreciated
the most because he was the man.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
Did you really text a Brown's coach during the draft
and say, hey, let's wreck the league.

Speaker 3 (49:35):
So me and Dal Loggins, who's my quarterback coach, we
had a good relationship, and he was texting me throughout
the draft like be patient, bro, be patient, We're coming
to get you. And this was a very personal conversation
between me and him that he told to a friend
that then got spun into what it is today, So
there was no you know, I'm still walking across the

(49:57):
stage doing all this. I'm doing my thing, like I'm
more excited to go to Avenue in New York and
party with Drake and the boys after to celebrate than
I am really thinking about football. At this time, everything
to me was like getting drafted in the first and
going to this party afterwards, and like it was the.

Speaker 4 (50:15):
Cherry on top of the whole thing was what it
was for me.

Speaker 3 (50:18):
So you know, that was a very personal text that
I sent that was internally supposed to motivate us to
be and get to where we wanted to go. That
then was then spun as to me being this cocky,
full headed, you know, egotistical little shit that doesn't know
anything about the NFL. And I don't think that's necessarily

(50:39):
how I was. Now, you can ask Andrew Hawkins or
Joe Thomas or Joe Hayden, or you know, the legends
in the building that we had with us, and they
would probably tell you that I was carrying myself like that.
From my perspective of things, that was never my intention,
nor did I want to carry myself like that. It
was against everything that I was raised and grained to beat.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
Did you want to go to Cleveland? Where did you
want to get drafted? Mm?

Speaker 4 (51:09):
Where did I want to get drafted? Probably Dallas.

Speaker 1 (51:15):
Better.

Speaker 4 (51:16):
I love Jerry.

Speaker 3 (51:18):
I loved getting a chance to go to sporting events
in that stadium and cross and circles with him.

Speaker 4 (51:24):
I love getting the.

Speaker 3 (51:25):
Opportunity as a college Texas A and M kid to
walk into that box and like rub shoulders with the
haunt joke. Yeah the guy. Yeah, So like I love that.
And sixteenth pick of that draft was Dallas. And I
remember the anticipation in Radio City when that pick was
coming up, and I had my fingers crossed under that
table the entire time. Please let me go put that

(51:47):
star on my helmet. Looking back now, thank God that
it didn't happen, because I wouldn't be sitting here today.

Speaker 2 (51:54):
You're saying that you wanted to go to Dallas, you
hoping Dallas draft you, but you said you're glad you
did and go to Dallas because.

Speaker 3 (52:03):
I think, knowing what I was doing in Cleveland, how
hard it was for me to party and move and
do these kind of things. If you would have put
me in a landscape that was my backyard, that I knew,
you know, I had been driving from College Station up
to Dallas when name one, nothing going on in College Station, right,
so it was something I was familiar with. I know

(52:24):
who I was hanging around at that point in my life,
and I think it would have been just an absolute disaster,
to the point of it wouldn't have been suicide. That
would have been the issue. It would have been drinking
and driving. It would have been taking a bag from
somebody you shouldn't take it from, and just boom, could
have been over in an instant. So I think I

(52:44):
know myself well enough to be able to say that
it would have been bad in its own right, and luckily, thankfully,
you know, it didn't happen, even though at that time
it's what I wanted.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
What would you study habits like? In Cleveland? How often
did you study? Did you watch Tate? Did you study
the game? When you're meetings? Did you were you attendive?
What was Johnny's study habits? Practice habits like?

Speaker 3 (53:07):
I would say, you know, Kyle Shanahan was the most
detailed person that I had ever seen in my life.
And I thought Cliff Kingsbury was really really good, but
Shanahan took it to a different level. He could coach
eleven twelve positions on the offense, detail, hat placement, hand placement,
every single thing. So our meetings and things were incredibly detailed.

(53:31):
My quarterback room was not a home for me because
of Brian Hoyer. Brian Hoyer had been waiting on opportunity
to be able to go really provide for his family,
get an opportunity, and he saw how much of an
upper hand he had on me, and he didn't hold

(53:52):
back when it came to that. So there was instances
in the quarterback room early on where I would ask
the same question a couple times and he'd be at
the head of the table and go again, we're doing
this again. Wow, keep him out of it, right, let's
just cut that off. And I don't have a bad
word to say about Brian Hoyer. That is just fact

(54:13):
of what happened in that room. So when that happened, well,
we were to ask another quarterback this in that room.
Go ask Connorshaw. Go ask Connorshaw, who played at South
Carolina and was with us in Cleveland. Go ask him
how Brian Hoyer was in that room. Go ask dal
Logins how he was in that room and it's okay.
But at that point in time of where I was
and I'm the franchise guy, I could have used a

(54:35):
little help, especially when they knew what I was doing.
And I've said this before in the past, and people
have said, why don't you take self accountability for what
it was and you not putting in the work.

Speaker 4 (54:48):
I didn't know what work like that was.

Speaker 3 (54:50):
I didn't know what the grind was because I was
great at Texas A and M without it. So a
sentim entitlement comes in that I can do it the
same way because I don't know any better. So when
you have that going on in the quarterback room, then
I just do this.

Speaker 4 (55:06):
I ain't speaking. If I question something I'm asking.

Speaker 3 (55:10):
I'm embarrassed right I'm getting dogged by a guy who's
supposed to be my teammate when I don't know. I'm
trying to figure it out. I don't know what cover
three is. You know what we did at A and M.
If that linebacker's tucked in and swoops faster than him, bang,
I'm throwing the bubble and he's down the sideline. I
wasn't looking at safeties. I'm not looking at one high
two high rotation. My mind didn't work that way from

(55:32):
a football player perspective. And then when I'm going into
my safe space quarterback room, I'm getting so I'm not
saying a word. Now, I'm struggling. Now, I'm getting behind.
Now i don't know the detail of the plays because
I'm not going home and dialing it in even more.
In the building, I studied film. I wanted to watch

(55:54):
these Rex Grossman clips of Washington and Shanahan. I wanted
to watch RG three twenty twelve season. I wanted to
see how you do this stuff, and I watched it
that I grind it the way that Peyton Manning does.

Speaker 4 (56:07):
Absolutely not.

Speaker 3 (56:08):
I didn't even know that was a thing until Josh
McCown got in the building the next year. And when
Josh McCown came in, the shift in that room went
through the roof of positivity. When I got there, he
comes up to me and he goes, you.

Speaker 4 (56:24):
Want to be a great quarterback.

Speaker 3 (56:25):
I go yeah, he goes, tie a string to the
end of my backpack and you can follow me around
wherever you want, and I'll show you what it takes
to really be a quarterback in the NFL. Now when
that goes to the practice field and we're out there
and we're dialing in these bang eights, we're throwing the comeback.
McCown's sitting there like, you can't fucking do this. I
can't make that throw, But you can't. What do you

(56:48):
think that does for a second year of player's confidence
through the roof. Now, our team as a whole is
not the same, our organization in a sense inside the building,
it's still incredibly dysfunctional. But for those first like you know,
ten twelve weeks of the season in twenty fifteen, we're

(57:10):
not winning.

Speaker 4 (57:11):
No, we only win two games that year.

Speaker 3 (57:14):
Like me as a football player, I'm growing John de Filippo,
who's our offensive coordinator, like we're growing together.

Speaker 4 (57:20):
His energy in the room and what it is.

Speaker 3 (57:23):
Is like positive and it's me, Josh, McCown and Connorshaw again.
And there is a huge shift in that quarterback room
that next year, and I start to get confidence and
I start to do this, and then life happens to
me again to where I'm not taking care of myself
and I'm frustrated in the building and I'll never forget

(57:44):
probably about week thirteen or fourteen of the season. I'm
walking out of coach Petton's office or I'm upstairs in
the where the coach's offices are in Cleveland, and I
walked by Jimmy O'Neal's office and he's like, hey, Johnny,
come in here for a sec. I'm like, oh, it's
our defensive coordinator. I'm like, what's up, coach? And I'm
chill with everybody like I'm a that's just how I am.

(58:07):
And he's like sitting back at his desk and I
got his foot up and he goes, you know, we'd
be really good football player if you got your head
out of your ass, and I'm like so caught off guard.
Now this confidence that I'm building is immediately just now.
I don't know if he meant in a way or

(58:28):
just like, you know, you're two and two and twelve
and your team is struggling and you're like, you know,
looking to wage the vent or whatever it was.

Speaker 4 (58:35):
But this happened.

Speaker 3 (58:37):
And when I left that that office and I went
back down to the quarterback room, I was white as
a ghost, so white that Josh McCown looked.

Speaker 4 (58:45):
At me just like you are and was like, what happened?

Speaker 3 (58:48):
And I'm like stuttering through this story, and Josh McCown
gets up out of his seat and walks straight up
to that to that fucking office. Now what was said,
I don't exactly know what it is, But when he
came back in that room, he was pissed. He said,
you don't do that in this league with a young guy,
and somebody like you just don't. You can't break it, Gump,
break me in half. And from there I was broken.

(59:10):
I ain't give a fuck, I ain't care about that team.
I didn't care about that what my role was, and
there's no excuse. All of these things led up to
be the perfect failure, and at the end of the day,
it's on my shoulders. But when you're starting to get
a little momentum and you get broken like that, that's
when the running to Vegas happened, and me missing the

(59:32):
last game of the season, that's when the Whig story
comes out. And when I'm really like running two three
weeks after this, when this happened, I go straight home.
I go straight to my basement. I get the biggest
bottle of Hennessy out of the bottom of the drawer,
and now I'm sitting in the basement. I'm listening to
the future every second. Every day, I'm partying by myself

(59:54):
just to.

Speaker 4 (59:55):
Try and like.

Speaker 3 (59:57):
Get out of this reality of a situation that I'm
living with, a head coach that wants nothing to do
with me, with the DC who's saying if I get
my head out of my ass, we'll have a chance,
just this whole perfect storm, and just like fuck this.
And when that happened, I was done.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
What was your relationship we like with Josh Gordon? You
have a guy and here we know he's had his issues,
his struggles, very similar to what you're sharing with us
right now.

Speaker 1 (01:00:23):
What was your relationship with Josh Great?

Speaker 3 (01:00:26):
I saw a side of Josh that the rest of
the world didn't get to see. I saw a guy
that was from that trap, that from that bad neighborhood
growing up, who would beat the odds to be able
to get there. One of the most physically talented specimens
that you'll ever see on the football field. He struggled
with a lot of the same things that I struggle with,
and I tried my best throughout those times to be

(01:00:49):
a better influence around Josh than a lot of other
people were. Because a lot of his boys didn't give
a shit at that point in time. And you know,
should I have done things differently in our relationship to
not you know, sway him certain ways, because I think
I definitely had to do this.

Speaker 4 (01:01:09):
We didn't do drugs together.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
Didn't do drugs.

Speaker 4 (01:01:11):
We didn't do drugs together.

Speaker 3 (01:01:12):
He loved the weed, man, he loved it, and when
he would come over to my apartment, all he ever
wanted to do was roll it and put it on
the counter. He just wanted to be included on the
whole thing, which is the way his mind kind of worked.
But he never smoked around me.

Speaker 4 (01:01:26):
He never.

Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
I mean, we went on trips together. We went to Aspen,
we went everywhere. Like JG was my dog to the core.
And funny you asked and just spoke to him yesterday
and he sounds like he's in the best place that
I've seen him in years. And it takes time and
getting away from it and for me and him, we're
talking about golf now, and golf is kind of like
an avenue that I never thought me and me and

(01:01:49):
JG would be able to talk about golf, go play,
and like golf is really shifted my mindset and being
able to still continuously give me competitions as much as
it is against other people. When you're playing golf is
always about yourself and battling yourself six inches between your
ears and then you know, getting in a good headspace

(01:02:09):
to go up and hit a good shot.

Speaker 1 (01:02:11):
John I want to get you out on here.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
You mentioned that once you left Cleveland that you contemplated
suicide and you spent all your money. Clearly that's the
lowest point of your life, whether it a culmination of
I'm not where I thought it would be. As far
as in the NFL. You're in the NFL, but you're

(01:02:34):
not playing, and you're not you feel you're not getting
the support that you need or deserves in order for
Johnny to be Johnny, because you just sometimes you need somebody,
just a little support. You need somebody to say, Johnny, hey, bro,
you can do this. Pat you on the back instead
of kicking.

Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
The butt all the time. When did you know?

Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
So what happened when you're contemplating taking your own life.

Speaker 4 (01:02:55):
It's different.

Speaker 3 (01:02:56):
It's not that I don't have the support. It's not
that I don't have the team, because at that point
in time, I had every single person you could ever
think trying to reach out and I'm just blocking people
at every single turn. And I think for me, it
was something I didn't find out until I went to
play in Canada again. I remember having this feeling in

(01:03:18):
Cleveland that I didn't love football. Okay, but it was
a feeling. And when I didn't play for a while
and I'm out of the league and I'm trying to
get back in, I end up going to Canada, and
when I walked into that locker room for the first
time and walked out on a practice football field, every
single feeling that I had felt in that Cleveland locker
room came back to me in that Canadian locker room,

(01:03:40):
and I knew right then and there that I didn't
truly truly love this game to the point of where
I need to do what I need to.

Speaker 4 (01:03:47):
Do to be successful. So the suicide thing comes in
when you look at life and you say.

Speaker 3 (01:03:57):
I fucked up the biggest golden opportunity that you could
ever imagined. And this is where I think whenever you
said what you said about the Fan Control Football League,
it is sad, Shannon. What you said on that day
is exactly right.

Speaker 4 (01:04:12):
It is sad.

Speaker 3 (01:04:12):
To watch a guy who had all the potential in
the world, all the opportunity, all the resources and team
around him, and he still goes fuck that. But what
if I told you today that I don't think that
I loved what I was doing enough to ever get
into the mix of doing it the right way.

Speaker 4 (01:04:31):
I went through that.

Speaker 3 (01:04:32):
Period with Josh McCowan where we did it, but like
it never was like over the tip and I'm not
in the gym, I'm not grinding. I'm not doing the
things that I did back in the day that made
me great. So now I realize that I didn't love
the game of football like that. I just happened to
be immensely talented at it.

Speaker 4 (01:04:50):
I happen to have.

Speaker 3 (01:04:51):
Great teammates around me, great coaches, great perfect storm to
be able to get me to walk across that hall
at Radio City Music Hall, across that stage. So that
feeling came back in Canada.

Speaker 4 (01:05:04):
I realize I don't love the game.

Speaker 3 (01:05:06):
And then when the game's gone from you, here's a
huge transition. And every guy will tell you what the
transition is to figuring out your identity and who you
are as a person. And I truly feel like from
two thousand and seventeen on. That's seven years that That's
what I've been doing. And my mission has been to
try and stay away, get a little bit of this

(01:05:27):
hype off me, and just live and find out about life.
To be a great uncle, to be a great brother,
to be a great son, to be a great role
model for Texas A and M. To be a great alumni,
you know, a leader, To be a great resource for
my guys who play at Texas A and M. And
these are all things and I'm trying to do and

(01:05:48):
moving forward that I've completely neglected in the past.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
If I can say, Johnny, you could go back, what
would probably be one of the two things that you
wish you could do.

Speaker 3 (01:05:58):
If I could go back to a certain point in time,
I would drop myself right after that in the locker
room of the Oklahoma came in the Cotton Bowl. Knowing
what I know now, I would have known how to
handle myself. I would have known how important and imperative
it is to be a better teammate than just numbers
on a field on Saturday.

Speaker 4 (01:06:20):
There's something to be said.

Speaker 3 (01:06:21):
About how your guys ride for you when you're doing
the right things in the building, and that twenty thirteen
year for US at Texas A and M, a lot
of internal problems were happening because their leader is distracted.
Their horse that makes this whole carriage go is fucked up.

(01:06:42):
And the shame that I have for letting guys down
like Cedric a Boy and like Jake Matthews and Mike
Evans is the same shame that I carried with me
to this day about letting down Joe Thomas is a
guy who's in the end of his Hall of Fame
career and is looking for somebody to come in and

(01:07:03):
lead this team, and then you get me. It's tough,
you know, it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing to have been the
guy that have let down some overall really great athletes
of my time and of my generation. Something I carry
hopefully with my head high right now. But at the

(01:07:24):
same time, internally, I know it eats me alive because
they did more for me than I gave.

Speaker 4 (01:07:30):
In returned to them.

Speaker 3 (01:07:31):
And what a shallow kind of selfish way of life
that I was living at that point in time. And
I have a lot of regret, like I regret wasting
a couple of Joe Thomas's last year is in Cleveland.

Speaker 4 (01:07:42):
I regret disrespecting Lebron and not making it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:48):
That's making sure what it meant to me, showing him
that I give a fuck enough to just do what's right,
to listen to mav and listen to.

Speaker 4 (01:07:57):
The team they built around me.

Speaker 3 (01:08:00):
Me up that I'd messed up our second year at
Texas A and M and we went seven and four
or whatever, because that was our chance to win a
national tride.

Speaker 1 (01:08:08):
Him off the game against Duke.

Speaker 4 (01:08:10):
Had a cool.

Speaker 3 (01:08:10):
Game against Dude one that was like a legendary kind
of tail on it. But like I almost wish to
this day that we lost that game because I would
have came back so us having that legendary run against
a bowl game.

Speaker 4 (01:08:22):
That's kind of like.

Speaker 3 (01:08:25):
Kind of wish we would have lost, because then I
would have came back with a vengeance. And I probably
wouldn't have got drafted because I would have gotten in trouble. Right,
But it doesn't sit right with me certain things, And
those are three things how I wasted my twenty thirteen season.
How I treated the legends in that building in Cleveland,
and how I treated Lebron in math and you know

(01:08:47):
from there. I can even take it a step further
and say, in twenty sixteen, I don't think I treated
Drake the way that I should have with representing the
clothes that I was wearing and his OVO brand and
his label and everything. You know, at that point in time,
I was so selfish that was dragging everybody that was
tied to me through the mud. Now it's regret. I'm
not harboring on this in this in any kind of way.

(01:09:08):
I'm just calling it exactly what it is in the
way that I feel about it, And you know, I
owe those people apology, and hopefully one day down the line,
I'll be able to have the opportunity as a man
to be able to look him in the eye and
be able to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:09:21):
I understand. This is my last question for you.

Speaker 2 (01:09:23):
I understand what that win in Tuscle Looser did for
your career, but it seems to me it was that
win against Oklahoma and the Cotton Bowl that really changed
it for you.

Speaker 3 (01:09:36):
You know, they're coming down from Norman, We're coming up
from College Station. It's a clash in the biggest stadium
in the state of Texas. The spectacle for US in Texas.
This is the granddaddy of them all. Not what goes
on out in the Rose Bowl out West for a
Texas kid, for a Kyler Murray, for these guys we
were talking about. To play in that stadium and do

(01:09:59):
what we did day was like, you can't tell me
shit from there on out. And what a shallow mindset
to have, What a selfish mindset to have. But being
a Texas kid, it's almost feeling like one of those
real big dreams and pillars of your life has been accomplished.

Speaker 4 (01:10:16):
And I didn't treat people the right way after that,
and it's.

Speaker 1 (01:10:19):
Unfortunate as we see it here today. How is Johnny
Manseil doing?

Speaker 3 (01:10:23):
Probably the happiest I've ever been in my life. And
I think I went through a period of time after
the documentary came out where I maybe acted a little
bit like I did in the past, and it's easy
to let ego and fame and stuff kind of creep
back in. And what I've done now since really, you know,
December ish, you know, it's new three months, but I've

(01:10:45):
insulated myself in a way with a team that I
can trust, people that I love that are doing nothing
but looking out for my best wishes, best regards. They
know me, They're not letting me cheat, They're holding me accountable,
and it's not going to happen. It is going to
be a slow, gradual process to get to who.

Speaker 4 (01:11:03):
I want to be as a man.

Speaker 3 (01:11:05):
But in my opinion, sitting here today with you and
join the hell out of this conversation, I feel like
I'm on the right path to where I need to go.
And as Johnny Manziel, not as Johnny Football.

Speaker 2 (01:11:15):
You were once married and this is the last one
you were once married. Could you see yourself being married again?
Or is there someone in Johnny Manzil's life that's keeping
Johnny grounded?

Speaker 4 (01:11:23):
Nope. It is my friends right now, my family, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:11:27):
It is my two nieces with a third one on
the way that I talk to every single day on FaceTime.
That are really my reason why I'm still here right
and a huge reason of my success is based off
my sister and my mother and my father and my
true core friends and my team I have around me.
So love will come when it comes, But for right now,

(01:11:50):
I'm focused on getting a bag, taking care of my money,
and getting back to where I need to be, being
the best brother, being the best uncle, and being there
for my family and my university in a way I
need to be to make people proud that I.

Speaker 4 (01:12:02):
Want to make proud.

Speaker 3 (01:12:03):
I don't want to continuously keep letting people down when
I feel like I'm destined for bigger, greater things than
that in life.

Speaker 2 (01:12:09):
I am so proud that you're sitting here today and
you found your reason to live, Johnny Minzail, Ladies and gentlemen,
all my life, grunning all my life, sacrifice, hustle plared
to pricing.

Speaker 4 (01:12:23):
Want a slice? Got the brother of all my life.
I'll be grounding all my life, all my life and
grunning all.

Speaker 3 (01:12:30):
My life sacrifice Hustle plaed to price it. Want a slice?
Got the bron of why all my life?

Speaker 2 (01:12:37):
I'll be grunting all my life