Disastrous debut for Manziel
Johnny Manziel called it a humbling experience.
The much-hyped CFL debut of the 2012 Heisman Trophy winner was a disaster as everything went downhill after his first pass was picked off by Larry Dean and his Montreal Alouettes were trounced 50-11 by the Hamilton TIger-Cats on Friday night.
It wasn’t all Manziel’s fault, but he was intercepted four times in the first half and put up only 104 yards on 11 completions before he was replaced by backup Vernon Adams in the fourth quarter.
He wasn’t buying the notion spread widely on social media by past and present CFL players that he was thrown into game action too quickly, after joining the Alouettes only two weeks ago.
“Everybody has an opinion,” the 25-year-old said. “Would it have been nice to be here for three weeks and then get the start? Sure.
“But I didn’t lack any confidence coming into the game. I didn’t feel unprepared. But who knows? I got the start and it went just about as bad as it could possibly go.”
Manziel was up against the team that dealt him to Montreal in a five-player trade on July 22. In Hamilton, he backed up Jeremiah Masoli but never saw game action, so anticipation soared when Alouettes coach Mike Sherman announced this week that he would start.
But the debut for the gifted Manziel, an NFL first round draft pick whose two seasons with the Cleveland Browns were marred by off-field troubles, was a bust for the 18,576 at Percival Molson Stadium.
“I didn’t feel uncomfortable,” he said. “I just feel I might have been a bit too amped up.
“As the game started, I made a really uncharacteristic throw on the first drive and it really set us back. I did a bad job of setting the tone on that first drive.
“This is a humbling experience. I’ve had this experience in the past and there are two ways you go about this moving forward. One, you can let it get you down and sulk and harm you moving forward. The other way is to take this on the chin like a man and never let this taste creep back in your mouth again and never let it happen again. This will motivate me.”