Johnny Manziel Burns Another Bridge, This Time It’s The CFL

Former Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel is determined to close every door that allows him to play professional football. He wore out his welcome as a member of the Cleveland Browns who had taken a chance on him in the 2014 NFL Draft. His marginal play and off field drunken behavior eventually caused the Browns to give up on him after two seasons. Today, he was essentially kicked out of the Canadian Football League.

Everyone is being tight lipped about the specifics but the big picture is that the CFL issued a directive that instructed the Montreal Alouettes to cut Manziel. The league said little more than Manziel “contravened the agreement which made him eligible to play.” The CFL also informed the other clubs in the league that it would not register a contract involving Manziel.

The CFL was extremely hesitant to have Manziel in their league. A deal was finally brokered in late 2017 at which point the CFL made this statement:

“Mr. Manziel has been informed he must continue to meet a number of conditions in order to remain eligible. These conditions, while extensive and exacting, remain confidential.”

These conditions involved counseling, drug testing and other factors that were developed following an assessment from an independent expert on domestic violence. CFL Commissioner Randy Ambrosie said essentially the same thing as the various official statements:

“We advised Montreal that Johnny had violated one of the conditions we had set for him to be in our league. And Montreal announced his release today. We didn’t release the terms of those conditions then and we’re not going to do that now. We’re trying to do what we believe is in the best interests of the entire league. The conditions we set, we thought were the right ones. Those conditions have been violated and we feel it’s best, and Montreal feels its best, to let Johnny move on. And we think it’s best for our league that he do the same. And we wish him well.”

Based on comments from Montreal Alouettes GM Kavis Reed it appears that his team bent over backwards to help him and afford him an opportunity to remain compliant with his conditions. He apparently refused to be cooperative:

“We are disappointed by this turn of events. Johnny was provided a great deal of support by our organization, in collaboration with the CFL, but he has been unable to abide by the terms of his agreement. We worked with the league and presented alternatives to Johnny, who was unwilling to proceed.”

In a completely unrelated story, the running website ‘Let’s Run’ accused Manziel’s wife Bre Tiesi-Manziel of cheating in the Divas Half Marathon road race.

As for Manziel, he’s already established a secondary revenue stream charging people $100 for autographs. He continues to labor under the delusion that the NFL will one day come calling for him to return. His best options for playing professional football are not particularly good ones and definitely a step below the CFL in terms of competitive quality. The Alliance of American Football is a startup league that could use his name recognition. What they don’t need is his history of drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence and other self destructive behavior.

The other option is the revived XFL which is launching in 2020. There’s another problem there–owner Vince McMahon has stated that players with criminal histories would not be allowed in the league:

“We are evaluating a player based on many things, including the quality of human being they are. If you have any sort of criminal record or commit a crime you aren’t playing in this league.”