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Cleveland Browns: Former CEO urged team to avoid Johnny Manziel

By Erik Lambert

SEATTLE, WA - DECEMBER 20: Quarterback Johnny Manziel #2 of the Cleveland Browns leaves the field after a football game against the Seattle Seahawks at CenturyLink Field on December 20, 2015 in Seattle, Washington. The Seahawks won the game 30-13. (Photo by Stephen Brashear/Getty Images)
SEATTLE, WA - DECEMBER 20: Quarterback Johnny Manziel #2 of the Cleveland Browns leaves the field after a football game against the Seattle Seahawks at CenturyLink Field on December 20, 2015 in Seattle, Washington. The Seahawks won the game 30-13. (Photo by Stephen Brashear/Getty Images) /
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The Cleveland Browns had so many opportunities to fix their quarterback issues prior to the arrival of Baker Mayfield. None more so than in 2014.

They had two 1st round picks in that draft. Everybody expected that one of them was going to be used on a QB. It was a matter of figuring out who that would be. There were plenty of big names on the board including Texas A&M superstar Johnny Manziel, UCF big man Blake Bortles, prolific Fresno State passer Derek Carr, and Louisville playmaker Teddy Bridgewater.

Former CEO Joe Banner went into the offseason with power. He had big plans. He wanted a quarterback and was enlisting a huge amount of manpower to scour the entire college landscape to find one. According to Terry Pluto, author of the new book “Browns Blues”, Banner’s people had a firm grasp on who the two best names to target were.

Neither was the guy the Browns eventually drafted in Manziel.

"“The day I was fired, Johnny Manziel was off our draft board,” said Banner.Banner was determined not to allow the Browns to draft Manziel.At that point—February 13, 2014—Banner’s analytics team and scouts had ranked the top two quarterbacks in the 2014 draft this way:Teddy Bridgewater of Louisville.Derek Carr of Fresno State.Banner had a lot of disturbing information about Manziel’s personal problems at Texas A&M.As Banner told me, “We knew everything. I mean . . . everything.”……“My goal was for us to come out of the draft with a quarterback,” said Banner. “It was either going to be Bridgewater or Carr. And if you look what happened, when it came time for the Browns to use their second pick in the first round—both were there.”"

Ownership flubbed the entire matter from start to finish that year

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Jimmy Haslam has a longstanding reputation for being a hands-on owner for the Browns. That and a man who doesn’t have the keenest understanding of how football operations work. Nowhere was that clearer than in 2014. He fired Banner that February along with GM Michael Lombardi, but only after they’d hired the teams’ next head coach and set the early draft board.

Then to compound the problem he promoted a clearly unprepared Ray Farmer to the GM position and gave him full power. Farmer apparently was against drafting not only Manziel but any of the top quarterbacks in the 1st round. Though he liked Bridgewater as Banner had, he didn’t feel any of those QBs were genuine franchise-altering talents. He preferred trying to bulk up the defense and the offensive line.

However, the voice that mattered most was Haslam and he was putting considerable pressure on Farmer to strongly consider Manziel. In the end, Cleveland traded up with their second 1st rounder to the #22 spot to take the college star. Banner’s warnings went unheeded. A couple of years later Manziel was suspended indefinitely from the team after multiple violations and quietly blacklisted by the NFL due to his erratic nature.

It took the team another four years and the most miserable stretch in franchise history to overcome that mistake.

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