Manziel deal might be a steal
Hamilton couldn’t pass on two former all-stars, two first-round picks for sideline quarterback
Johnny Manziel isn’t famous in the football sense, he’s famous in the famous sense. So as news of his trade to Montreal filtered out to a wider football audience on Monday, it sparked a question: Why would the Hamilton Tiger-Cats trade somebody so famous?
The short answer? It made football sense.
The package the team received for Manziel included two former (and potentially future) all-stars and two first- round draft picks, all for a guy who had yet to take a regular season CFL snap. The Ticats are better today and potentially better in the long term and that’s hard to do in any trade.
Manziel is still very much a question mark both as a football player and as a person. While the Ticats organization and Manziel’s teammates were publicly effusive in their praise, there were rumbles that his commitment to the game wasn’t necessarily beyond reproach, that he had been late or missed meetings on more than one occasion. Head coach June Jones essentially punted on that issue when asked about it.
“That kind of stuff I’m really not going to comment on. All that stuff is internal,” Jones said.
“All those things go into decision-making, though.”
So does the play of the others around him.
Starter Jeremiah Masoli, who has led the team to a 2-3 start during a tough opening portion of the schedule, has cemented his status at the No. 1 guy. The Ticats have had a good long look at Manziel since mid-May and if they really, truly believed he was the second coming of Doug Flutie or Danny McManus, it’s extremely unlikely they would have sent him to a division rival.
Manziel’s arrival was accompanied by an extraordinary amount of hype, some generated by the Ticats themselves.
In a piece of remarkable hyperbole, Jones said in an interview in December that Manziel could be the “best player to ever play up here.” There were several other moments of tirepumping from the organization as they tried to convince him to sign here.
It worked and the fans bought in, too, snapping up his jersey in significant numbers and getting excited about the most recent quarterback messiah set to lead them to the promised land. The Ticats bought themselves some goodwill by offering a $100 store credit to those that ponied up early for a No. 2 in team colours, but there is no doubt a segment of fans feeling a little bit duped.
But that’s football. If there’s no room for sentimentality — and veteran players are regularly shown the door as soon as their usefulness dips below their price tag — then there’s no need to hang on to a player who might sell a few extra jerseys or a season ticket pack or two. Winning is the only goal.
Should Manziel flourish in Montreal, there will be renewed head-shaking from a fan base that’s seen a number of false quarterback idols paraded before them, without ever achieving Grey Cup success.
It shouldn’t just be about Manziel but it will be because, if we’ve learned anything from this experience, everything is about Johnny Football. He is famous, after all.