He looked bigger in the chest in his gray Play 60 T-shirt than expected, and he made it clear he is Johnny Football, not Johnny Playboy, and Johnny Football is carrying the chip on his shoulder he has carried with him all the way from Kerrville, Texas.
Which means that when asked if NFL teams that pass on him Thursday night at the draft will regret it, Johnny Football stares unblinkingly beneath the sunshine at Chelsea Waterside Park and says matter-of-factly: “I believe they will, personally.
“ ’Cause I know in my heart how good I want to be and how committed I am to this game. I’ve tried to show them how committed I am, and how much this is really my life. This is what I have loved doing for a very long time now. And I just wouldn’t be able to sleep … live with myself, if things didn’t go the way I wanted it. And you never know — there’s higher powers out there that control my fate and what goes on, there’s some things you just can’t control in football.
“But for me, I know that I’m not gonna go through this process and look back at it 10 years down the road and say, ‘I wasn’t successful because I didn’t put in enough time or put in enough effort.’ As competitive as I am and just how I am as a person, I couldn’t live with myself knowing that I didn’t put in what I needed to because of whatever else the situation may have been, I just couldn’t do it.”
It wasn’t a defiant “I’ll show you.” But it spoke to the little quarterback’s giant belief in himself.
“I do have a chip on my shoulder,” Manziel said. “I’ve been doubted for a long time. I don’t let that faze me, it doesn’t make me lose any sleep at night, but … I felt like coming out of high school, I was better than I was rated. I feel like coming out now that I’m a good quarterback and there’s room for me to grow. I don’t have all the answers and I’m not an All-World quarterback, but my goal in life is to be really, really good. On and off the field.”
The team that drafts him will have been convinced his Johnny Playboy ways are a function of an immature rebel with a college kid’s cause.
“I think I’ve done a great job of alleviating concerns of these guys, and them getting to know me on a more personable level, and I’ve answered every question, anything that they wanted to hear from me, so there’s nothing for me to hide,” Manziel said. “And I don’t think it’s wrong of me to enjoy my life and have fun.
“I’m not getting to this level to be complacent, that’s not who I am, that’s not what I’m about.”
The face of someone’s NFL franchise has stubble on his chin, and above his lip.
He is anything but the conventional NFL quarterback and isn’t about to apologize for it.
“I don’t think Russell Wilson or some of those guys in the league fit a cookie-cutter mold,” Manziel said. “I don’t think you have to be a certain height, a certain mold, a certain type of anything. I feel like if you want to be really good, put the time in and play with a lot of heart.”
His schoolyard style has scared off some NFL teams.
“I see that there’s room for me to improve, but to say that I’m just a backyard … football quarterback or anything like that, I don’t think you do what I did in college and do some of those things just doing that,” Manziel said. “So I don’t think that’s extremely fair. I hear it. But for me, I know that it’s all about my work ethic and my will to continue to get better, and that’s very alive and inside me.”
He will have to be more of a pocket passer, but whatever team drafts him would do itself a disservice asking him to rein in his improvisational genius.
“I don’t want to be what I was in college. … For me, I feel like I have a high ceiling, and I’m very eager to expand my knowledge and get better,” Manziel said.
He has no idea where he will wind up.
“Whether it’s 1 or 200, I’m just ready to get back on the football field and start playing football,” Manziel said.
He grew up watching the Cowboys, who draft 16th, and has gotten to know Jerry Jones.
“He’s a huge figure in the state of Texas, and the way he’s treated me has been great,” Manziel said. “I would obviously like to go a little bit sooner than that, but like I said, it’s out of my control, and whatever happens happens.”
He met with Bill Belichick. “It was awesome,” Manziel said.
The Texans?
“Obviously it would be a great deal for me to go No. 1 overall, but that’s in their hands, it’s out of my control,” Manziel said.
His parents and sister will be at Radio City with him on this emotional night.
“I just feel like we’ve been through a lot the last couple of years, whether it’s scrutiny or a lot of people coming into our lives or whatever it is,” Manziel said. “At the same time, it’ll be great to fulfill a lifelong dream of mine and be an NFL player, find out where I’m gonna spend the next five years, four years of my life.”
Get ready, NFL. Here comes Johnny Football.