Might we get a little dose of Johnny Manziel on Sunday?
Currently, the Cleveland Browns sit at 1-2 and both losses came with Josh McCown starting behind center. The team’s only victory was when Johnny Manziel started in Week 2 and the second-year quarterback performed adequately enough to pull off the win, going interception-free along the way.
Ever since the win, fans and teammates have made it known they’d like to see more of Manziel under center. In an interview with offensive coordinator John DeFilippo, he was asked if the team might consider deploying some plays utilizing Manziel to make the Browns less predictable.
“That’s always a possibility,” DeFilippo said, via Cleveland.com. “To say we don’t have plays ready for Johnny Manziel against the San Diego Chargers, I’d be lying to you. OK? I’d be lying to you. So you never know. We may use them and we may not. That’s the competitive advantage of showing up and playing an opponent on Sunday. They don’t know what we’re going to do and we don’t know what they’re going to do.”
Obviously, if this was the plan for Cleveland, DeFilippo wouldn’t announce it to the public for San Diego Chargers inquiring ears to hear. However, planting a hint out there that Manziel could appear in some surprise plays could be just enough to make the Chargers rethink their plan of attack.
In all reality, however, it appears that the Browns are planning to stick with McCown through thick and thin:
“He is (the guy to lead us),” said DeFilippo. “There’s no doubt in my mind that Josh is. He had a really below-average first quarter and a half. He recognizes that and we all recognize that. …There is no one that is preparing better to make sure that doesn’t happen this week against the Chargers than Josh McCown.”
At some point we may eventually see Manziel in action, however it doesn’t appear that it will come in a tandem or tag-team type of format.