Browns rookie head coach Mike Pettine isn’t fazed by the mania and draw that follows Johnny Manziel. Pettine has seen the media and fans rave over a player, and according to the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Johnny Football has nothing on Tebowmania as its crux.
it’s “easier” because it’s “different.”
“The circumstances are different,” Pettine said. “Tebow was an established NFL player, he wasn’t coming in as a rookie, unproven. It’s a little easier for us with Manziel because he understands he earned Johnny Football as a college player and nobody understands it more than him. It’s like, ‘Listen, I don’t want to be named starter coming out of the draft.'”
Pettine dismissed complaints pundits had about not naming Manziel the starter immediately.
“People criticize us for referring to him as a backup. That’s what he is,” Pettine said. “It would have been a disservice to the other 80-some players in the locker room and it would have been a disservice to him carrying that burden of ‘What have you done to deserve this?’ We all want him to be successful but there is a process that has to occur and he has to go through it.”