Johnny Football

Johnny Football

He’s a magician. His slight of hand with a football is uncanny.  As he stated in an SEC media day interview his motto is,”Work hard, play hard.”  What are his chances of becoming a superstar at the next level?

As I stated in past articles I don’t believe that his lack of height (listed as 6’1” standing on a phone book) will be an issue. There are plenty of QB’s who have had success on the next level who are diminutive in stature. His weight is also not a major issue because it makes him more elusive running the ball and in my opinion less likely to sustain big hits. The only area that it shows up is in a lack of arm strength. Modern NFL offenses prize quick decision making and extending plays over the ability to drive the ball downfield in most offenses.

The issue as is the case with most players is being selected to a team that offers the chance to play immediately. The learning curve for rookie QB’s has been shortened vs previous years because the NFL has adapted their offenses to fit those run in college. This only makes sense because of the dollar investment in the position. Teams can’t throw salary cap money away waiting for players to develop, especially QB’s.  The teams that I think are most likely to select him are Minnesota, Tampa, Cleveland, Tennessee, and Jacksonville.

There have been many comparisons between Manziel and Doug Flutie, RGIII, Russell Wilson, Drew Brees, and Jeff Garcia to name a few. Here are the stats of each individual’s last year in college vs Manziel’s Freshman year:

Player	ATT	COMP %	YDS	TD	INT	RUSH
Manziel	434	68	3706	26	9	1410
Flutie	423	58.2	3634	30	13	379
RGIII	402	72.4	4293	37	6	699
Wilson	309	72.8	3175	33	4	338
Brees	473	60.5	3393	24	12	546
Garcia	356	55.1	2608	21	16	359

A few stats stick out in comparison to the men listed above. First is that Johnny uses his legs far more than anyone else on the list. He is slightly less accurate than RGII and Wilson but more so than the others. Although I would chalk some of that up to more downfield passing offenses for Flutie, Brees, and Garcia. The interceptions indicate a decision making ability on par with the others. What were the NFL rookie seasons like for each?

Player	ATT	COMP %	YDS	TD	INT	RUSH
Flutie	46	50	361	3	2	36
RGIII	393	65.6	3200	20	5	815
Wilson	393	64.1	3118	26	10	489
Brees	27	55.6	221	1	0	18
Garcia	375	60	2554	11	11	231

Given the following information. Manziel should roughly be expected to produce about 2800 yds passing, 15-18 touchdowns through the air, 60% completion percentage and 800+ rushing yards. That equates to roughly what Christian Ponder passed for last year but with the element of rushing of RGIII. A rookie performance like that would place him in the 15-20 range of best QB’s in year one.