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By Robert Read
Life & Trends Reporter
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Johnny Manziel started only eight games in the NFL despite being a first-round draft pick. One reason for his short tenure as a starter was revealed on Tuesday.
The former Heisman Trophy winner and Cleveland Browns quarterback admitted to watching "zero" game film during his NFL career. Manziel made the revelation during the Netflix documentary Untold: Johnny Football, which hit the streaming platform on Tuesday.
Manziel's agent during his two-year NFL stint, Erik Burkhardt, said in the documentary that Cleveland's general manager at the time, Ray Farmer, would call him complaining that Manziel was not watching any tape.
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"I'm like, 'Well, he's gotta watch some tape,'" Burkhardt said.
He did not.
...
Burkhardt went on to explain that Manziel's iPad, which the team distributed and could use to track how much game or practice film was being played, showed "0.00" minutes watched. After Burkhardt's story, the documentary cut to Manziel.
"Zero," Manziel said, while making a "zero" sign with his hand and holding it up to his face.
Manziel was drafted 22nd overall by the Browns in the 2014 NFL Draft. "Johnny Football," as he became known in college, appeared in 14 games between 2014-15 with Cleveland. He threw seven touchdowns and seven interceptions during his NFL career.
Since his NFL days, Manziel has returned to professional football in other leagues. The 30-year-old has appeared in the Canadian Football League, the Alliance of American Football, and most recently Fan Controlled Football, an indoor American arena league.
His rise to fame started at Texas A&M, where he won the Heisman Trophy as a redshirt freshman in 2012. That season, he threw for 26 touchdowns, ran for 21 more, and constantly electrified audiences with exciting plays—including during an upset win over top-ranked Alabama.
Manziel is not the only highly drafted quarterback to skip watching tape.
JaMarcus Russell lasted only three years with the Oakland Raiders after being the No. 1 overall pick in the 2007 draft. NFL Network's Rich Eisen once shared on his podcast that Raiders coaches would send Russell home with game-plan DVDs constantly and say it was loaded with plays and ideas to study.
The coaches suspected Russell wasn't watching them. So, one time, Eisen said the coaches slipped in a blank DVD to test Russell, only for him to return later and say the game plan looked good to him.
For comparison, last year, Pat McAfee said on his show that he once asked his former teammate, Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning, how much film he watched.
Manning's answer? About 20 hours a week, and that only included what he watched on his own.
"You've got to watch every game the other team has played," McAfee recalled Manning saying to him. "Every snap they've played. Every practice clip from your week in practice. Every game you guys have played against a similar defense that they're playing. Every single third-down situation broke up in there. Red Zone. Every first-down operation..."
McAfee added: "I've just always heard the greats were film junkies."
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