Opinion: Johnny Manziel still clueless about public perception

When will Johnny Manziel learn that public perception means everything when it pertains to earning the trust of his team and becoming the face of the Cleveland Browns franchise?

After a splendid Week 10 performance that earned Manziel the starting job with the Browns moving forward, the quarterback promised that during his bye week, he would not do anything to embarrass the organization, via Daryl Ruiter of cleveland.cbslocal.com.

“I let him know that I’m not going to do anything that’s going to be a distraction to this team or be an embarrassment to the organization. I’m going to get a chance to go and relax like everybody else in this locker room is. I don’t think they’re going to have to worry about me this week.”

So what does the clueless quarterback turn around and do? He allegedly spends two back-to-back evenings at popular Austin, Texas nightclubs where everybody and their brother has a cellphone to capture and record him at his finest.

While there’s nothing wrong with Manziel wanting to let loose during his time off, couldn’t he have held a house party Derek Jeter-style and required all guests to check their phones at the door so his antics wouldn’t be spread throughout social media for his bosses to see the next day?

Though Manziel didn’t appear to get too carried away with his partying and there were no legal ramifications or cops involved, didn’t he stop and think about his newly awarded starting job before he flaunted his bottle of Dom? Or, how about the fact that he is only eight months or so removed from spending 10 weeks in a rehab facility during the offseason?

Clearly, the champagne bottle didn’t send a fabulous message, and his photos created a huge distraction.

It is completely mind-blowing that Manziel remains so thick-skulled when it comes to his image in the public eye. Considering he narrowly escaped any heat that could have come from his recent publicized fight with his girlfriend that involved the cops, one would think he would have handled his bye week shenanigans more discreetly.

At 22-years old, Manziel can certainly do whatever he pleases whenever he wants.

Though, so can the Browns, and that is why he has been demoted down to the third-string quarterback, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Ouch.

For Manziel to remain so clueless about the potential ramifications of his questionable off-field antics, and to even weakly suggest that the photos/videos could be old footage, without even looking at them, is beyond preposterous.

Unfortunately at this time, Manziel simply doesn’t get it. Or he flat-out doesn’t care. Only time will tell if he ever wakes up to reality.