Johnny Manziel Part 2

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.
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.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
So John here, you got you? Why put yourself in
that situation where it could be allegedly 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

(00:46):
number two jerseys fly off the shelf, break me off
where I cut. 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 to do it. I mean
seal bands of money coming in. He I need seventy bands.
Seventy bands, seven seventy How the hell I'm I travel

(01:10):
to Miami with seven bands? What are you doing with
seven bands here? I need seventy? Wow, let me ask
you this.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Let's just say, for the sake of argument, when Johnny
Manziel his Heisman Trophy season and the season after the
nil is an existence?

Speaker 2 (01:29):
How much Johnny? How much Johnny Football get probably ten million?
Yere 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 in 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

(01:49):
is you know, I get on my phone and get
on Twitter and be like, yo, 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 in the world and people that

(02:10):
I wanted to be around was limitless, or just my
cell phone in a house and college station.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Had Johnny Manziell been a little bit more discreet, you
probably still could have gotten that ten But because ig
and you posted it, you at lib and you all
these places with the.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Star, They're like, man ain't nowhere here.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
No college athlete have that kind of access unless he
getting broke off.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
My family's rich. Yeah, and so is that.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
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 2 (02:56):
Correct. 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 big problem in
my life, Shannon has been. I wake up every day

(03:39):
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
that make you on comfortable. You can't just wake up

(04:01):
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,
which isn't the most glorified way all the time. You know,

(04:24):
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
way to give back more than just thinking about yourself.

(04:46):
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 that shifts, I became a bad teammate. I became

(05:06):
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, twenty eight years old, shame shannon to

(05:26):
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, I don't have anybody to blame but myself.
My mom and dad didn't raise me to be that

(05:48):
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, So why
did it happen. You know, those are the question. Shouldn't
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

(06:12):
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 happened in the past
it ain't gonna happen again moving forward.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
If Johnny Football persona had never been created, do you
still go down that path?

Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yeah? 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. It's fame is a
it's a drug. It's addicted. Oh, it's a high. It's
just chase the dragon of fame. Man, you chase the
dragon a clout and it is very, very addictive. And

(06:57):
it is a problem that I dealt with in my life.
And if you were to ask 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.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
Who damned you out for those autograph signing? Somebody damned
you outs.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
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. And the guy

(07:34):
went to the University of Texas was in Houston. He
blew the whistle, and then it all started to crumble down.
And it happened quick.

Speaker 1 (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 Heisman trophy, You
almost led them to a national a national championship. If
you'd have had somebody working behind the scenes, he says, 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 would say, like, for
five million, he'll stay, won't ever say a word about this,
And you say, Kevin, someone looked like, bro, we're gonna
keep this train rolling Without Johnny.

Speaker 2 (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.
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,

(08:52):
every time focus and I looked him from that day
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 bond with him
and I still have to this day. And when he left,
the fuck sucked.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
I'm looking at this.

Speaker 1 (09:10):
They said they sold forty five million, number two Texas
A and m Adidas.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
Church maybe forty five million in revenue, forty five million,
a lot of jerseys Texas well, okay forty five and
so if Dady gave you.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
Say here, Johnny, were gonna get you five percent. I'll
take ten, damn, Johnny. Five percent is mouch better than
what you get.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
You're right, You're right, You're right. Okay, five five.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
But when you see when you see Texas ad them
making forty five million in Jersey sales and Johnny Manziel's
getting seven seven hundred dollars in a stipend, that doesn't
say it right with you?

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Does It didn't.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
So you start concocting the way how you can get
you how you can get some of that pie.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
Exactly. I got my pie. But you knew, you knew
that it was wrong.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
You knew that you could get yourself in trouble and
potentially the university.

Speaker 2 (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 to get that. I'm trying how I get

(10:23):
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 of my dogs in the locker room. 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

(11:08):
into these locker rooms. Ye don't come from Kerrville, Texas,
from the suburbs all the time. Yeah, they come from
the trenches. Yes. 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,

(11:28):
how all these people come in from different walks of life,
and it's not as peachy as you think it may be.
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. 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, at that tab at

(11:49):
the club was picked up. Always did your parents know
you was getting this money? Oh?

Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah, cause you breaking them off too?

Speaker 2 (12:02):
How you lay break mommy and dad? Though? Mom and
dad are doing fine. Mom and dad are living at
the biggest golf course in town. Dad's got his best
job he's ever had. What you want? Did you hit
him get the job? No? My Dad's independent on his
own to be able to go do that. I'm sure
my name and what was going on, of course, might
have helped it, but you know, I was finding out

(12:25):
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 you a book a flight? How are you
gonna go somewhere?

Speaker 3 (12:35):
Like?

Speaker 2 (12:35):
What do you do with caw? Do you check into
a hotel? How you do this? So it was like,
you have any credit cards? You ain't get no credit card, Johnny.
I ain't know nothing out of credit card until I
got to Cleveland, Ohio. I know nothing. 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

(12:57):
credit card. I didn't know anything about credit let's all.
Reggie Reggie Bush similar situation.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
I guess his parents took some money over there living
in a house, and he ended up having his Heisman
trophy taken from me.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
Do you believe Reggie should get a higemotrophy back? Without
a doubt? It's legal now. 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,

(13:33):
why does he still have his heis member? Reggie doesn't.
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 boy, talking with the guys. There's chatter, there's
chirp going around that nobody in this crew and this

(13:54):
Heisman fraternity, it sits right with us that Reggie ain't
up there with us every year. It makes every one
of us sitting there choice myth, all these guys that
I sit next to on 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

(14:16):
argument see to be the best ever in college football.
Do you believe he'll get his trophy back? 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

(14:37):
chances are that they're going to do the right thing?
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

(14:58):
in my power. That may be. I'm just the little guy.
I'm just the old first freshman to win a I
don't have no I ain't got the clout like I
used to 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

(15:19):
his trophy back.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
What's your best guess as to why coach Slaven walked
away from the game, still coaching at the highest level.

Speaker 2 (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

(15:48):
washy where's the money today? 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.
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

(16:10):
then goes back into the office. It worked the next day.
So Nick Saban is it. He's him. He is exactly
what you expect him to be. And when I met him,
you know, in New York that second year of twenty thirteen,
when I went back, I remember him walking into the room.
Aj mccerrn was a finalist, I think, and I don't think.

(16:33):
I think Aj was a finalist and he walks into
the room and it's just like I remember it, 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 going to come in contact with.
And I remember him walking into the room and shaking

(16:55):
his hand and talking to him for a second, and
then that conversation kind of fades and we go on
about them, and for the rest of my life, I'll
never forget that moment and him walking in that.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
Guy, 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.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
Some of the pantheon greats.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
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 you two
million dollars. So now it has it leveled a playing
field or has it created an unequal playing field?

Speaker 2 (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. You're getting a
little bit more level. You're at the transferred portal. You know,
Colorado can now take people from Alabama or Georgia that
don't want to go there, just based off the transfer portal.

(17:55):
So I think it's brought it up and made a
little even. You know, college football goes in those waves
of like you got your Florida Dynasty, you got 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. Like I
didn't want to go on this whole SEC tangent be

(18:16):
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. It is harder for those

(18:36):
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 1 (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 their college. And look, man, we gotta have
a fund. We got to 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. So it's
a little easier for you to break a guy that's
coming that's in the portal because you know, look at Addison,
he wins the BULLETNA call.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
Any changing school. That's unheard of.

Speaker 1 (19:34):
You would have never got a guy that wins the
buckets or win an award. Do you a ward like that,
the girls skill or whatever the case may be, the
Thorpe and transfer school.

Speaker 2 (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 1 (19:53):
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 2 (19:56):
I don't know at that point in time, you know,
I was thinking about like, you know, I loved A
and M and I, but this way that like could
you feel the shift? Could I feel the shift? I
don't know. I could see that I was getting used
a little bit into what they needed me to do
to have their master playing right. A and M had

(20:16):
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 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

(20:37):
way about it right now? Absolutely not. I love my school.
I love what happened. 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 loves. I don't think
it's the House of Johnny, but that's what they call it.
They can call it what they want it like that,

(20:57):
Like it's disrespectful to Mike, that's disrespectful to Jake Matthews.

Speaker 1 (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 2 (21:12):
I get the praise for what we do as a
team because my players special on the field.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
Let me ask you a question. When you're a little kid,
they're like, all right, who want to play online? 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 So it's a positional things you're
giving the quarterback there. Yeah, it's a rightful piece of
the pie. Which one of those guys were flying private?
Probably just okay? Who is playing jewelry cards? Probably just me? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (21:41):
Well, who was hanging with Drake and James Flinton courtse
Oude of James Harden.

Speaker 2 (21:45):
That's definitely just Yes, you're the half of Johnny Bill. Okay,
So you put it that way. I mean, you ain't
never gonna get me to a med too.

Speaker 1 (21:53):
But help me understand this, John, I'm trying to figure
out how you get suspended for half a game. I
mean that, like I almost suspend you from school, but
you don't have to come to first, second to third,
but you getting cold fourth, fifth, and sixth.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
You know what I asked. I asked if I could
be suspended for the second half because we'd be up
so much in the first half, right, They said no.

Speaker 1 (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? I mean, you come in cold the
second half?

Speaker 2 (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
not even seeing nothing back here, right me? Man you

(23:07):
come on. 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
for the first day. 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

(23:27):
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 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

(23:48):
pinnacle of my nerves of college football in that setting.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
But Johnny, you kept sign you kept signing autographs, you
kept partying. Did you feel those things helped you? I mean,
did you feel that you could that you and you
played better while doing those things.

Speaker 2 (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 drunk
as you could get with all the dogs. Friday was

(24:24):
the walkthrough. I go there, we walk through at ten
am in the morning, dying. It's been like a looker Steve,
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. Its
hard handing the fake. I'm taking off down the sideline
for twenty thirty yards running back, I'm sweating down. You

(24:46):
try out, Oh yeah. 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
the season that year. And I'm getting better as it

(25:09):
goes on. 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 to go
be special and my number is my second year. Totally,
We're better. We're better. That's what I needed to do

(25:31):
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 in my life. I felt like I did enough

(25:53):
for me. Okay, I was living my life at that
point in time to appease what other people expected for
me or wanted from me. I wasn't living really in
the right way. 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

(26:13):
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 of took over from there. Twenty thirteen
on you know, there's no reason, There's no reason other

(26:37):
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. Because
I'm the backup. I just got handed all this money
and I'm not taking it seriously enough because I don't

(26:57):
know how to be a profession 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.
I ain't never taking a snap under center, But Jimmy

(27:21):
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.
So you see how all these things are compounding together
to equal a huge disaster. You didn't feel you could

(27:43):
do in Cleveland what you had been great at Texas Lee,
not at all. I don't know for no confidence.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
I hear you mentioned you said on Tuesday night we
had this with the boat the baseball team. Thursday night,
we did this with the other boys. I ain't here
nothing by no school.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
I was a good student. How I what my dad
when I was in high school, in middle school growing up,
if I didn't have a's or b's in 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 on that thing, I'm grounded until I
can get an A and B on that next report card.
That was my rules forever. So if I got to

(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. Yeah yeah, yeah, So
now I can do my classes online. I can do
that like that was. The school was never the problem
for me. 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

(29:02):
our athletic department named Lee Hood, and Miss Hood saved
my life academically, just keeping me focused on what it
was and not 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 them and have an opportunity to
go to the NFL.

Speaker 1 (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 at your absolute best or as you say it

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

Speaker 2 (29:46):
Yep, 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, wouldn't 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. When it comes to that stuff.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
I'm looking at I read this, it's like the rumor
was you came from oil money?

Speaker 2 (30:16):
Did you have all money? 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 was very, very big, so my grandpa, he
had like six brothers and sisters. They hit this huge

(30:37):
oil well. So when I'm growing up, I don't even
realize that we have a farm and tyler with a
runway and a hanger in the back and all this stuff.
I didn't even really know what it was. My grandpa.
Because of what my great grandpa had done, they had
the opportunity to be boys boys, right, take the planes.

(30:58):
They were big in the box scene, so like Jack
Dempsey was a huge like family friend of theirs. You know,
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

(31:19):
like minor ly ingrained in me for what I saw
as a kid and what they were doing in the fifties, sixties, seventies.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
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 he battom eye, How could they
prove it? They couldn't because you had I just call them.

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

Speaker 2 (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 then,
like I'm living that's like separate from that. Like family stuff,
it's not as cohesive anymore. Right. The fame and everything
that comes with with what happened to me will break
a family apart very very quick. Who we go into

(32:21):
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.
It wasn't just a me thing. 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

(32:42):
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, I
got to walk into my grocery store and get treated
like one. And why is that? Fared of your father?
And I hit me like a ton of bricks?

Speaker 1 (33:03):
Is that where the change came? Because because you saw
the toll. Not only would it, 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 2 (33:20):
It's a start. That was the start of it. 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. I think that's
a complete understanding and self awareness of oneself. Okay, so I,

(33:41):
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
detailed and honest about every situation and what went into it,
why I may have done that, that's a continuous like

(34:03):
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
I think I should have been. Is this all you of?
Was therapy involved a lot of self therapy? I mean

(34:24):
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 offseason.
I didn't get to like I needed to work on
myself and at this time, like I learned a lot
through that, and it continuously learned as I went on.
And this is a you know, collection of ten years

(34:48):
of not therapy every day, not therapy every week, but
a lot of Is it with yourself? You have to
know who you are. You know who you are, you
know what 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

(35:09):
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, 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

(35:30):
truly looking out for my best interests.

Speaker 1 (35:33):
Johnny, you mentioned that you partied, you like to drink alcohol.
Was the heavier drugs involved other than alcohol in marijuana?

Speaker 2 (35:40):
Oh yeah, college? No, once you got to the league. 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

(36:01):
like college station ate me up because I couldn't move,
I couldn't park my car the wrong way, I couldn't
do anything. I was always spotlight. 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.

(36:24):
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. I'm struggling but not
letting anybody know. Right. So, like my whole like right
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

(36:45):
I did it to myself for a long point in time.
Do you remember the first time you tried hard drugs?
Oh yeah, yeah for sure.

Speaker 1 (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 no one 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 2 (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 a 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

(37:47):
like tear 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 head, especially the days of
wandering around the Hollywood Hills. And it makes sense why
you see me so sporadic and like I was two

(38:07):
hundred and ten pounds when I left Cleveland. I was
one hundred and seventy pounds sitting in Vegas that August,
that September, October, whatever it was later than that year.
How you lose forty pounds you're on a strict diet
A blow.

Speaker 1 (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 So that's the new THINGA toushe you right
about that?

Speaker 2 (38:36):
Bro? 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.

(38:59):
Let's go again Google.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
Yeah, So as an athlete, you're very competitive when you
when you when you do drugs, do you still have
that competitive nature?

Speaker 2 (39:09):
Like when you with your boys, do You're like, Man, iin't, Benn,
let you one up me? You can't. I'm a tank
when it comes to the party. I mean I could
party hang with the best of them. Like 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. You
put somebody in your that you think in your life
can really go that distance with the honey or with them,

(39:29):
with the drugs or whatever you want. 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 so you Drake does a song draft day.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
What was it like to hear Drake mention mention you
in a song, and what was it like hanging out
with Drake.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
He's the big, one of the biggest.

Speaker 1 (39:56):
Slams in the world, and here of a college kid,
a young college kid, just hanging out with him.

Speaker 2 (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? Yeah? I took it from
the safe last week when I came by the house. So, like,
my relationship with Drake is one that changed my life

(40:22):
for the better forever still to this day, you know,
a pillar of my life. 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. And I'm
thankful for him. I appreciate him, and you know, I

(40:44):
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,
and there ain't no song playing that you like. It's
my song about the day that's happening now tells right.

Speaker 1 (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,
if Drake all of a sudden likes them, they're gonna lose.

Speaker 2 (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,
but that's his life, right. There is no curse as
to each his own. You know, if I handle my
business in the proper way, I make him proud, right,
our relationship changes like so like that's there's a lot

(41:43):
of people that I let down. I truly feel like
him and Lebron at a point in time for people
that I really really let down.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
You mentioned that you that Lebron and MAV you signed
with Lebron and Math and there are people saying Johnny
Mann's will be bigger than Lebron James in Cleveland.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
I think that person is Skip Bayless. He definitely believed
in you.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
It does he believed in you and his thing to
his credit when he believes in a guy yourself, Tim Tebow.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
Baker, Baker, Yeah, Skip, I love you, Bro. I hope
you know that I 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

(42:39):
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, 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

(43:03):
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 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

(43:26):
me everything that I could have ever needed to be successful.
So something that's still to this day. I think now
that we're talking about it, I haven't completely truly got
over yet. 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

(43:47):
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 bed. Had 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

(44:10):
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. Is that an excuse,
Absolutely not, Because at the end of the day, the
respect that I should have for them. Giving me everything
should trump all else.

Speaker 1 (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 2 (44:37):
Say? You know what? I won't eat all right? So
my mom as a kid, if you're get any tattoos
or I'm going to disown you. They went really hard
down that route. 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 semester and uh

(45:01):
college station. I went and got a tattoo, sat against
all odds on the inside of my arms, and I
got a Proverbs thing on my on my chest. John
Bones Jones has this Philippians Part thirteen. I got Proverbs
three five through six. Trust, trust, not trusting the Lord
with all your heart, and lean not on your own
understanding and all your ways, submit to him, and he

(45:22):
will make your paths straight. And I got that. 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? Ah, it's nothing, it's nothing.
Finally take your shirt off, and I'm like, all right,
moment of truth. She took it pretty good for what

(45:43):
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, oh,
you influenced him. 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

(46:05):
I truly feel that anybody can. And my dad's had
his falls in life, my mom as well, and we
all do as human beings. But like it's about never
giving up, and it's about keep going. Is the mantra
and mindset that I use. Keep going. You know, God
only gives the toughest test in life the people that
can truly handle soldiers soldiers. So like, yeah, a lot

(46:28):
of mind was self inflicted. But I feel to a
point today that I'm here for a better purpose, for
a bigger purpose. 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

(46:51):
where I want to go.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
Is it true that you were about to fake a
flunk a drug tests had to come by and your
dad faked the medical emergency.

Speaker 2 (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. I

(47:24):
got with some NFL 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

(47:46):
in front of my face, 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

(48:07):
pick in the draft. So we'll see you in the
third round. And that's a five year deal turned to
a four, turned 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. And
so so you passed, I guess I didn't smoke it.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
Wow Okay, so wow, Yeah, because concidered the way you've
been partying, Bro.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
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 1 (48:43):
When you're 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.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
Did you like those comparisons? I like the Brett fav
of comparisons the most, I think because Brett shit like
shaped the 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 varb Atlanta Falcons jersey that I wore
religiously when I was in college station and I didn't

(49:13):
know that he was there, and like what happened and
him getting too 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 1 (49:28):
Did you really text a Brown's coach during the draft
and say, hey, let's wreck the league.

Speaker 2 (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's what was
the cherry on top of the whole thing was what

(50:18):
it was for me. 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

(50:38):
don't think that's necessarily 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

(50:59):
was raised than the grain to beat did you want
to go to Cleveland. Where did you want to get drafted? Mm?
Where did I want to get drafted? Probably Dallas better.
I love Jerry. I loved getting a chance to go

(51:20):
to sporting events in that stadium and cross and circles
with him. I love getting the opportunity as a college
Texas A and M kid to walk into that box
and like rub shoulders with the haun choke yeah the guy. Yeah,
So like I love that. And sixteenth pick of that
draft was Dallas. And I remember the anticipation in Radio

(51:40):
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 star on my helmet. Looking
back now, thank God that it didn't happen, because I
wouldn't be sitting here today.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
You're saying that you wanted to go to Dallas, you
hoping Dallas draft you, but you said you're glad you'd
I didn't go to Dallas because.

Speaker 2 (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 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. There
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 and its own right, and luckily, thankfully,
you know, it didn't happen, even though at that time
it's what I wanted.

Speaker 1 (52:54):
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 attentive?
What was Johnny's study habits? Practice habits like?

Speaker 2 (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

(54:14):
of what happened in that room. So when that happened,
we we were to ask another quarterback this in that room.
Go ask Connorshaw. Go ask Connorshaw, who played at South
Carolina and it 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. I
didn't know what work like that was. I didn't know
what the grind was because I was great at Texas
A and M without it. So a sentim entitlement comes

(54:56):
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.
I ain't speaking if I question something I'm asking. 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.

(55:18):
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
a football player perspective. And then when I'm going into
my safe space quarterback room, I'm getting so I'm not

(55:40):
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
these Rex Grossman clips of Washington and Shanahan. I wanted
to watch RG three twenty twelve season. I wanted to

(56:01):
see how you do this stuff, and I watched it
that I grind it the way that Peyton Manning does.
Absolutely not. 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,

(56:22):
he comes up to me and he goes, you want
to be a great quarterback. 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,

(56:43):
you can't fucking do this. I can't make that throw,
but you can't. What do you 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

(57:06):
of the season in twenty fifteen, we're not winning. You know,
we only win two games that year. Like me as
a football player, I'm growing John de Filipo, who's our
offensive coordinator, Like we're growing together. His energy in the
room and what it is is like positive and it's me, Josh,
McCown and Connorshaw again. And there is a huge shift

(57:29):
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. Probably about week thirteen or fourteen
of the season, I'm walking out of coach Petton's office

(57:51):
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 a that's just how
I am. And he's like sitting back at his desk

(58:12):
and I got his foot up and he goes, you know,
we'd be a 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
away or just like, you know, you're two and two
and twelve and your team is struggling and you're like,

(58:33):
you know, looking to wage the vent or whatever it was.
But this happened. 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 at me just like you are and was like,
what happened? 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

(58:56):
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
the young guy and somebody like you just don't. You
can't break it. Coump break me in half. And from
there I was broken. 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

(59:19):
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 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,

(59:40):
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 just to try and like get out
of this reality of a situation that I'm living with

(01:00:00):
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 of just like fuck this. And when
that happened, I was done.

Speaker 1 (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 2 (01:00:23):
What was your relationship with Josh Great? 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

(01:00:44):
of the same things that I struggle with, and I
tried my best throughout those times to be 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,

(01:01:06):
sway him certain ways, because I think I definitely had
to do this. We didn't do drugs together. You didn't
do drugs. We didn't do drugs together. He would 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. He never. I mean, we

(01:01:28):
went on trips together. We went to Aspen, we went everywhere.
Like JG was my dog to the core. And funny
you asked, I 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 JG would

(01:01:50):
be able to talk about golf, go play, and like
golf is really shifted my mindset and being able to
still continuously give me competition, but it's 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
to go up and hit a good shot.

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

(01:02:32):
in the NFL. You're in the NFL, but you're 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 the butt all the time. When did you know?
So what happened when you're contemplating taking your own.

Speaker 2 (01:02:55):
Life, it's different. 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

(01:03:15):
to play in Canada again. I remember having this feeling
in 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 ended 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

(01:03:36):
locker room came back to me in that Canadian locker room,
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 do to
be successful. So the suicide thing comes in when you
look at life and you say I fucked up the

(01:03:58):
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. It
is sad to watch a guy who had all the
potential in the world, all the opportunity, all the resources

(01:04:19):
and team around him, and he still goes fuck that.
But what if I told you today that 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. I went through that period with Josh McCowan
where we did it, but like it never was like
over the step and I'm not in the gym, I'm
not grinding. I'm not doing the things that I did

(01:04:41):
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.
I happen to have 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. I

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

(01:05:26):
a little bit of this 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 that

(01:05:48):
I'm trying to do and moving forward that I've completely
neglected in the past.

Speaker 1 (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 over.

Speaker 2 (01:05:59):
If I could go back to certain point in time,
I would drop myself right after that in the locker
room of the Oklahoma game 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. There's something to be said

(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 Boye and like Jake Matthews and Mike Evans
is the same shame that I carried with me to
this day about letting down Joe Thomas as a guy
who's in the end of his Hall of Fame career
and is looking for somebody to come in and lead

(01:07:03):
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 same time, internally,

(01:07:25):
I know it eats me alive because they did more
for me than I gave in returned to them. 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. I
regret disrespecting Lebron and not making taking that's making sure

(01:07:49):
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 the team they built around me.
Bucks me up that I 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 time him off the game against Duke. Had

(01:08:10):
a cool 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. That's kind of like 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,

(01:08:32):
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,
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

(01:08:53):
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 I 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. 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

(01:09:15):
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. I understand. This
is my last question for you.

Speaker 1 (01:09:23):
I understand what that win in tusc Loosa 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 2 (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

(01:09:59):
do 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. And I didn't treat people the right way
after that, and it's unfortunate as we see it here today.

(01:10:21):
How is Johnny Manseil doing? 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,

(01:10:42):
it's new three months, but I've 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 I want to be

(01:11:04):
as a man. But in my opinion, sitting here today
with you and joining the hell out of this conversation,
so I feel like I'm on the right path to
where I need to go. And as Johnny Manziel, not
as Johnny Football.

Speaker 1 (01:11:15):
You 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 2 (01:11:23):
Nope. It is my friends right now, my family, you know.
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.

(01:11:46):
So love will come when it comes, But for right now,
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 want
to make proud. I don't want to continuously keep letting
people down when I feel like I'm destined for bigger,

(01:12:08):
greater things than that in life. I am so proud
that you're sitting here today and you found your reason
to live, Johnny Minzail.

Speaker 3 (01:12:16):
Ladies and gentlemen, all my life, grinding all my life, sacrifice, hustle,
pare the price, Want a slice, Got to brow the
dice all my life. I'll be grinding all my life,
all my life, the grinning all my life, sacrifice, hustle,
pay the price, want slice, Got to brow the dia.

Speaker 2 (01:12:36):
All my life.

Speaker 3 (01:12:37):
I've been grounding all my life.