Jones doing his best to sell Manziel
Will Johnny be good?
Only if he underachieves, judging by Hamilton Tiger-Cats head coach June Jones’ effusive appraisal of potential CFL quarterback Johnny Manziel.
“I think he’d be the best player to ever play up here,” Jones told interviewers James Cybulski and Davis Sanchez on Thursday. “He can throw it and run it like nobody has ever been able to do.”
This is a clever sell job by Jones, whose team owns the
CFL rights to the 2012 Heisman Trophy winner.
If you want to entice Manziel to attempt to resurrect his professional football career north of the border, there is the imperative of wooing him.
If you want to excite the fans about the mere possibility of Manziel coming to Canada, you do exactly what Jones did while being interviewed for The Waggle podcast.
It’s all about the sell — and about making tongues, er, Waggle.
All too often, high-profile employees of CFL teams forget that they have tickets to sell.
“We’ve got to play well in all three phases” isn’t exactly an attention-grabber.
The Manziel chatter, hyperbolic as it may be, cannot hurt the CFL — especially in the all-important southern Ontario market. If Manziel arrives and ultimately thrives, think of the impact he can have across the league.
Even if Manziel does not become “the best player ever to play up here” — in these books, Doug Flutie was the best and Joey Walters was the most exciting — the former Cleveland Browns first-rounder can still be immensely beneficial on so many fronts if he can excel as a player and a person.
Johnny Three-Down Football. Imagine the possibilities.