One Amateur Coach's Assessment of Johnny Manziel's QB future

Oh, it is nice to take another break from trying to write fiction and write something which flows easily from brain to words.  Today's bit of fun comes courtesy of the Alabama-Texas A&M football game yesterday.  As I watched the game, like so many college football fans, I am stunned into jaw dropping often by the play of Johnny Manziel (aka Johnny Football-JF).  I am constantly amazed at how elusive he is and how he just makes things happen seemingly by simply being present.  As a coach however, I am also rendered nearly brain dead from all the face palms and shaking my head at how absolutely awful his mechanics are.  He makes Tim Tebow look fundamentally sound.  Yes, I just typed that.

The kid really should go to Vegas and let it ride.  With the unholy amount of luck he has on a football field, he should be a billionaire in Vegas by the end of the season.  No less than 8 times yesterday I saw a play which should never have resulted in a positive play, do just that.  Unreal.

I have read many articles online which speculate this will be his last season at A&M.  Him being a redshirt sophomore, he can elect to go pro after this season if he chooses.  I have even read some draft gurus projecting him in the Top 30 players drafted should he decide to come out.  Based on outcomes in college, I would understand this high draft status.  But I think the NFL has learned another hard lesson about quarterbacks in the past 3 seasons.  Tebow is likely bound for the CFL if he insists on playing QB still.  Even with the revolution of read-option offenses, Tebow could not landa  single job offer after being cut by the Patriots this August.

This season so far the Redskins are 0-2.  Part of the reason for this sadly is RG3.  I love RG3 and his fundamentals are normally spot on.  His football IQ seems solid and I love the personality he exudes.  But there is no mistake he is not 100% on that right knee yet.  I wish I had a good screen capture of his game against Philly or Green Bay to illustrate, but if you watch him, he is not setting his weight properly, and he is not stopping his drop and transferring his weight to his back leg yet.  He is favoring the knee and using his left knee to set his drop and thus his throws lack zip and are often off the mark or a tad late arriving.

But back to Johnny, this is supposed to be about his future.  I am saying it now: this kid is not a first round pick.  Maybe somebody thinks they can coach him up and fix these problems (most of them are coachable and can be corrected if JF works at it), but I just don't see it yet.

He lacks ideal size.  Now Drew Brees and Russell Wilson will help him in this regard.  At 6'1", 209 he is not very big, and since colleges often inflate these metrics, he is probably 6', 205.  So, even as good as Wilson was in college, he fell to the 3rd round.  Now, Wilson has been amazing, so this might help Johnny, but only if a team really believes in him.

His maturity and leadership are lousy.  Everyone knows all his off-the-field problems.  His on-field antics against Rice proved he still hasn't learned his lessons, and given his intense love affair with the party scene, sorry this is strike two.

But my writing tonight is the strike three.  Fundamentals.  I am going to include some (albeit bad quality) screen captures from the Bama game which clearly illustrate what must be keeping Kevin Sumerlin from ever getting too comfortable with his QB play.

The first capture is from Manziel's INT he threw when A&M had the ball at the Bama 3-yard-line in the first half.  This pick ultimately cost A&M the game, as those 7 points were the difference.

Terrible footwork and shoulder work.

Notice Manziel's should is actually perpendicular with the yard line.  He is set to throw a lateral sideways, the yellow lines show the plane his feet and shoulders should have been set to for the corner fade he threw.  Besides making the wrong read on the play, he made an awful throw and this is why.

Johnny's signature play in the game, and again, awful mechanics, but an impossibly lucky result.

The second pic is from his signature play in the game.  He scrambled around, escaped a tackle by #8, ran around some more and unleashed this pass which resulted in a big gain.  It should have been intercepted and no coach alive would ever want to see his QB do this again.  First, his footwork is off again.  I understand he is scrambling here, but his feet are aligned to throw to the corner of the endzone, not straight down the middle of the field.  Secondly, this his shoulder is actually correctly loaded, but he is falling backwards, so the ball is going to sail much higher and be in the air much longer than it ever should.  Lastly, his back foot is already on the ball of his foot and the ball is still behind his ear.  His plant foot should not come off the ground until the ball is past his head in the throwing motion.

 

Every coach from PeeWee to the NFL is blowing a gasket over his ball security.

Here is Johnny Football begging to become Johnny Fumbledball.  If you are going to run with the ball, secure it.  Put a big arm lock on it, keep it close to your body and take care of it.  You never, ever want to carry it below your hip, gripping it with a single hand like this.  He might butt fumble himself one day.  He had given up on passing the ball on this play, he was clearly in run mode, just tuck the ball away already!

Again, bad mechanics. Shoulder misaligned, bad footwork and this time is resulted in an incomplete pass as he sailed the ball high of the receiver.

This last shot again shows the plant foot rotating too early, his shoulders are misaligned and he has absolutely no momentum on this throw, his knees are not even slightly bent.

On the last drive of the game, I have video showing how he took the snap and instead of executing an actual drop, he walked back 5 steps (yes, he literally walked back) and then got set to throw the pass.  He ended up getting flushed from the pocket and ran forward, eventually throwing a shovel pass to an open receiver near the sideline for a 9-yard gain.  The play ran for 10 seconds and cost them valuable time to try and mount a comeback.

So, anyhow, yes, Johnny is exciting on the field and never really dull off it either.  But, I pray another generation of young kids don't emulate his play on the field either.  They won't find success.  If JF can ever correct these flaws and become a sound passer (and he can mature some...err, well a ton), he would be Colin Kapernick, RG3 kind of amazing.  He has the gift of being elusive, the kind of luck which could bankrupt Vegas, and he can help a team score some points.  But, he also leaves a lot of "could have been" points on the field.

I am just a junior high level coach and fan, so I know others have to be making evaluations too.  It will be fascinating to see how those look too.  I just wanted to put my thoughts down now, and see how the rest of the year goes.