The Minnesota Vikings were looking for a quarterback in the 2014 NFL Draft, and that year’s class had plenty of options. As the evening wore on into the middle of the first round, the Vikings’ decision centered around two names – Teddy Bridgewater and Johnny Manziel.
Many believe the Vikings dodged a bullet when the Cleveland Browns traded up to take Manziel with the 22nd-overall pick. However, the Netflix documentary Untold: Johnny Football dove deeper into the events leading up to that moment.
There’s a good chance that taking Manziel would have been a disaster for the Vikings. But there’s another universe where the Vikings could have saved Manziel’s career.
It starts with Manziel’s upbringing in Kerrville, Texas. Manziel moved to the small town early in his life because of its “military-style” football program. With a strict regime, Manziel’s father hoped to install discipline in his son, which helped lead him to a legendary high school career.
“My dad wanted me to be in that program because of how strict they ran it,” Manziel said in the documentary. “Your first period of the day [at] 7 a.m. is football. … After school, you would practice again. It was a double dose every single day. The Kerrville way, the Tivy way…that whole mantra we had lasted until the second you walked out of that school as a senior.”
Manziel shattered records but was spurned by the University of Texas before committing to Texas A&M. Manziel’s collegiate career would go on to change the program, but it also came with a drop-off in the discipline.
Shortly before Manziel attended his first practice, he was arrested in June 2012 for disorderly conduct, failure to identify and possessing a fake identification card. While all three were misdemeanors, Manziel faced no repercussions from the football program and went on to become the starting quarterback that fall.
This went on to be a theme as Aggies head coach Kevin Sumlin routinely bent the rules for his star quarterback. After dropping the first game of his career to Florida, Manziel hit his stride against SMU, and the legend of “Johnny Football” continued to grow.
Like many college quarterbacks, Manziel became a legend off the field as well. Freed from the discipline of Tivy, Manziel partied after games and operated under the mantra of “Win or lose, we booze.” He put up video game numbers on Saturday afternoons before partying late into the night.
“After football, we didn’t talk about football,” former high school friend Nate Fitch said in the documentary. “It was as if he was just doing this thing on the side and the reason wasn’t to be bad-ass and win and do all these unbelievable feats. It was for what happened after you win.”
Manziel’s lifestyle came into the spotlight before a game against Mississippi State during his freshman year. After photos of him dressed in a Scooby Doo costume went viral, Manziel showed up to practice hungover the Friday morning before the game.
“You can tell he’s obviously had a couple of cocktails,” Kliff Kingsbury, who served as Texas A&M’s offensive coordinator, said. “He goes out there during the walkthrough, just pouring sweat…and I just look at him and say, ‘You better f—ing play good.’”
Manziel went on to rack up 430 yards of total offense and scored twice in the win over the Bulldogs. The following week, Manziel orchestrated one of the biggest upsets of the past decade when he led the Aggies into Alabama for a 29-24 win over the top-ranked Crimson Tide.
At that point, “Johnny Football” became a national celebrity. He was unable to go to class as he was mobbed by adoring fans. But Manziel’s success bent the rules to the point where there were none.
Manziel eventually spoke to the media as he emerged as a Heisman candidate and began signing autographs for money after his freshman season. When he was caught by the NCAA after sitting courtside, buying expensive cars and showing up to celebrity-filled parties, an elaborate defense set up by Fitch allowed Manziel to escape with a two-quarter suspension.
While the Aggies limped to a record of 17-9 over the next two seasons, Manziel was still a legitimate draft prospect – albeit a broken one.
If we go into an alternate universe where the Vikings traded up for Manziel, there’s the obvious path where he self-destructs and everyone is right back to where they started. But there’s also a chance that Mike Zimmer could have re-installed the discipline that Manziel had in high school.
When Zimmer arrived in Minnesota, he had established a reputation for handling reclamation projects. During his time in Cincinnati, he helped Adam Jones revitalize his career, and Vontaze Burfict become one of the top linebackers in the NFL. Even dealing with the enigmatic Deion Sanders was something Zimmer could handle. Manziel could have been his next pupil.
While Zimmer didn’t have the best relationship with his quarterbacks outside of Bridgewater, his style could have been the jolt that Manziel needed. Of course, there were plenty of other issues that could have made it a complete disaster.
During his pre-draft process, Manziel’s agent, Erik Burkhardt, attempted to install discipline in his client, hoping that he would find his way back into the top 10. Although he drug-tested Manziel on a daily basis in the leadup to the combine, Manziel went out the night before workouts and just about foiled those plans.
The rest of the draft process was about getting Manziel across the finish line. By the time draft day rolled around, most teams had done their homework.
If Zimmer and the Vikings’ front office knew everything that we know now, there is no way they would have signed off on drafting Manziel. But there was still a report from Peter King that said the Vikings were one of five teams out-bid by the Browns for that 22nd-overall pick, and that the initial plan was to draft Manziel.
Perhaps there was some thinking that Zimmer could succeed in making Manziel his latest fixer-upper, but Manziel was a broken prospect at that point of his career.
Manziel’s college career was a stepping stone for so many people, because Johnny Football himself couldn’t (legally) profit off his own name, image, and likeness. While A&M fired Sumlin a few years later, Kingsbury parlayed that 2012 season into the head coaching job at Texas Tech and later became Arizona Cardinals’ head coach. Texas A&M also profited off Manziel’s success, printing blank No. 2 jerseys and rolling in millions of dollars from football-crazed alumni.
That broke Manziel from a mental standpoint. He was looking to find what made him happy. He admitted that he wasn’t content in Cleveland, and it led him down a road to party even harder, ultimately leading to his release and a subsequent suicide attempt.
There’s no guarantee that the Vikings would have helped Manziel find happiness. But with the NFL’s push toward mental health, Manziel may have had the resources to get out of his depression had he entered the league a few years later.
Still, the mental aspect left Manziel uncommitted and amplified his flaws as a quarterback.
“People think of these athletes as being super disciplined, on a diet, and just being absolutely committed to their craft,” Fitch said. “But I never saw him look at a playbook. Ever. I didn’t see it happen.”
Manziel sounds like a nightmare to pair with Zimmer. The coach wasn’t a fan of Kyle Sloter, a similar quarterback who displayed his backyard-football style of play in preseason games. Nor was Zimmer high on Kellen Mond, who he mothballed after Minnesota selected him in the third round of the 2021 draft.
Many believed this was a case of Zimmer disliking rookies, but the truth is he never played anyone who wasn’t ready. Laquon Treadwell was a first-round pick who spent most of his rookie season on the sideline. The Vikings also redshirted Trae Waynes in his rookie year. Cam Dantzler spent a season behind a struggling Bashaud Breeland, and Wyatt Davis never saw the field after Minnesota took him a few picks after Mond.
All of this means that selecting Manziel would have been the wrong move for the Vikings. But there was a better chance the Johnny Football experience would have worked out in Minnesota than it did in Cleveland, and it would have been interesting to see how it would have played out.
