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June 22, 2015On Tuesday June 16, 2015, the City of Cleveland — as well as America and the world — lost a beloved dynamic personality, but may have gained a quarterback.
Sometime between a dreary and uninspired effort against the Baltimore Ravens in the waning hours of 2014 and last week’s organized team activities, Cleveland Browns mega-persona Johnny Football passed away. The passing of Football was confirmed by Jonathan Manziel on Tuesday. “I think that chapter of my life is behind me,” said Manziel. “I’m trying to close that chapter and just build on what I’ve done so far this year and just move forward and really just try and close that chapter in my life…
“The money sign will not be back. I will not be making it.”
Johnny Football was born in 2012, when he took over as the starting quarterback for the Texas A&M Aggies. He was a human highlight reel from the start, but his signature moment was a performance in which he accumulated 557 total yards of offense against Arkansas (453 yards passing and 104 yards rushing), then a college football record — a record that he broke two games later. His greatest victory that season occurred when he led his team to a 29-24 victory over the then-No. 1 ranked Alabama Crimson Tide. Up 23-17 with over eight minutes remaining, Football hit Malcome Kennedy with a precise 24-yard Nike missile strike (soon to be endorsed by Nike athletic apparel company) that put the game out of range for the Tide. Football proceeded to win the Heisman trophy, the first freshman to ever win college football’s greatest individual honor.
Johnny Football was equally incendiary in 2013 for Texas A&M, and he flaunted his status as an active legend — a rarity for a college athlete whose role is chiefly defined by its impermanence. Because he loved America so much, Football allowed the Aggies to fall behind 38-17 in the first half of the Chick-fil-A Bowl, so that it would be all the more improbable and exciting when Football led his team storming back in the second half. The Chick-fil-A Bowl was played on December 31, 2013, and made all New Year’s Eve fireworks detonated that night around the world seem dull and uninspired by comparison. The 2013 Chick-fil-A Bowl is likely the most entertaining relatively meaningless bowl game in college football history,1 and was a college football finale as delicious as the pair of pickles on a chicken sandwich from the bowl’s namesake. The comeback began with a touchdown pass that followed what appears to be an aborted hurdle over a linebacker and engaged offensive lineman and defensive tackle.
Johnny Football finished fifth in the Heisman voting in 2013 and slipped to 22nd in the NFL Draft, which seemed to only augment his folk hero status somehow — because he was Johnny Football. Teams were scared to pick Football because of his seemingly unmanageable control of his host quarterback (Manziel would later say, “I think it just overtook who I was just as a person, too. I think, at times, Johnny Football probably took over me a little bit, too, and I bought into that.”) and his what we’ll call “non-traditional” manner of playing the NFL’s most venerated position. Football was finally selected by the Cleveland Browns late in the first round, who traded up to pick the dynamo. That Football’s destination was Cleveland seemed to be a challenge: could he be the miracle worker in the sports city where miracles go to die?
His first and only season in the NFL was a struggle. Johnny Football’s off-field antics and consumption habits earned more attention than his on-field play, which was lackluster at best. He made only two starts, and managed only 175 passing yards and 29 rushing yards to accompany a paltry QBR of 5.08. Football’s season fittingly ended when two Carolina Panthers combined to tackle him as he tried to escape the pocket — an apt metaphor for his physical abilities being insufficient to escape the well-defined boundaries on how a quarterback is “supposed” to play in the NFL.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6j2fIVJfp4
Johnny Football was more of a celebrity than a football player, and less of a person than a tool of commerce that was literally a trademark owned by one Jonathan Paul Manziel. Football’s “money sign” celebration involved him massaging his fingers with his thumbs and brandishing it toward the crowd, as one would do with piles of paper money bills — it’s a popular gesture performed to flagrantly flaunt wealth that was emblematic of everything for which Football stood.
Johnny Football was an original; an improvisational offensive genius who used playbooks less as a set of directions and more as a set of loose guidelines. If there is any professional football success in the future, it will be because his successor (in his own words) becomes just “another player on [the] team that is in here trying to get better and just trying to be successful.” If his successor prospers, it be because he suppressed what made Johnny Football fascinating and fun, and instead consciously became more like everyone else.
It remains to be seen whether Jonathan Manziel will become an effective NFL quarterback, but Johnny Football will be remembered for his loud personality, brashness, electrifying playing style, and flair for the dramatic. When driving offenses, he would set the bus on fire himself to make it even more spectacular when he drifted into a powerslide with the rear of the bus dangling over a cliff and miraculously made it safely into the end zone. His outrageous and unapologetic personality made him the ideal hero for the ironic and self-deprecating Cleveland sports fan.
Johnny Football likely passed away as a result of a combination of sobriety, professionalism, and conformity. Johnny Football is survived by his mild-mannered alter ego Jonathan Manziel and the now-crushed imaginations of thousands of football fans who thought it was possible to play hard and party harder. The 2015 Cleveland Browns begin the season on Sunday, September 13, against the New York Jets at MetLife Stadium.2
- Well, if you’re a sports nihilist, they’re all relatively meaningless — in which case you’ve probably never rooted for a team that played in the Rose Bowl. [↩]
- Editor’s Note: This post originally ended with a montage of some of Johnny Football’s more memorable photos, complete with Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel” playing in the background. The video has since been blocked in some countries, including the United States, due to a copyright claim. WFNY contends that the use of the copyrighted material was permissible as fair use, a defense which allows for the use of copyrighted material under the First Amendment, but has declined to dispute the claim. Credit to Dan Labbe from the Northeast Ohio Media Group for coming up with the idea of a Johnny Football memorial video with Sarah McLachlan in the background. It is unfortunate that the video cannot be shared, but again, all of this is unfortunate. [↩]
9 Comments
Precise Nike missile strike? That pass to Kennedy was a wounded duck, a mauled mallard, a crippled canvasback. But no matter, he got it there, right on the, uh, money.
I wonder if he’ll be doing commercials again. Or if anyone will even want to hire him to do commercials.
Johnny Jamboogie?
He’s a bum, too.
I will be there on Sept 13. I hope he wins the starting job. Time will tell.
I close my eyes, only for a moment, and the moment’s gone…
YOU’RE MY BOY, FOOTBALL!
https://www.screenused.com/images/oldschool/Old_School-9.jpg
(that pic of young Blue could actually pass for JFF)
It’s silly season.
amien
goo.gl/IDKvX6
I like me waitingfornextyear ………… ———Keep Reading
I definitely blew it by not incorporating Kansas and Frank the Tank from Old School into this.
McCown is destined to be the week1 starter. That way, Manziel can start week1 of 2016 and we can continue to add to our list of new week1 starting QBs.