In just a few short years, Johnny Manziel went from being a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback and first-round draft pick to flaming out of the NFL after two seasons with the Cleveland Browns.
Manziel opened up about his time in Cleveland during an appearance on the "YNK Podcast," acknowledging how his off-field antics cost him the respect of his teammates.
"Looking back on it now, I would say I absolutely, 100% lost their respect," Manziel said around the 42:00 mark. "Why wouldn't you? If I was one of them looking back at what I was doing and your decisions that you make off the field impact, if I put food on mine, yeah I'd feel some type of way, 100%. I would say we wasted a draft pick to go get this guy who doesn't give a f---. And that's my only thing in life that I haven't been able to look back and like fully have closure on ... it's probably one of the only things that I haven't looked back on and been able to be like super, super okay with what happened.
"I don't appreciate going to Cleveland for two years and impacting and wasting two years of Joe Thomas' career, who's a guy that's going to be a 12-time Pro Bowler and going to be in the Hall of Fame. And I regret not going and being closer with these guys and being distant into the other life that I was living. And it's nuts. And to sit back and look at it now, it's a shameful thing and something that I have to look back, and at the end of the day, I can only say 'Yo' to those guys."
The Texas A&M product went on to say he felt the Browns had the talent to go far during his tenure in Cleveland, but he wasn't giving everything he had to the team.
Manziel's 2-6 record in eight starts for the Browns led to his release in March 2016. The 27-year-old spent time with the CFL's Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Montreal Alouettes in 2018 and had a brief stint in the now-defunct AAF last year.
As of September, Manziel said he was retired from football.
