Johnny Manziel

Johnny Manziel has been open about his past substance use, but he provided some new insights into how dark things got after his career with the Cleveland Browns ended.

On the latest episode of the Club Shay Shay podcast with Shannon Sharpe (h/t TMZ Sports), Manziel revealed at one point in 2015 he lost 40 pounds due to cocaine use.

"At that point in time, man," he said, "I would look in a mirror and I didn't see myself any different than when I was in Cleveland. Until I stepped on a scale at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas, I didn't realize I had lost 40 pounds at all."

The Browns selected Manziel with the No. 22 pick in the 2014 NFL draft. He entered the league with a tremendous amount of hype after winning the 2012 Heisman Trophy and becoming the biggest star in college football during his time at Texas A&M.

Manziel's career went downhill basically from the second he arrived in the NFL. He was fined for giving the middle finger to Washington's sideline during a preseason game.

There were concerning signs even before Manziel turned pro. In a 2013 ESPN The Magazine article from Wright Thompson, his parents expressed concerns about how he was dealing with his instant celebrity. It was also revealed that they, along with then-Aggies head coach Kevin Sumlin, mandated he visit an alcohol counselor after his arrest the previous year.

After his rookie season, Manziel entered a rehab program and remained in treatment for three months before being released in April 2015. He appeared in nine games for the Browns in 2015 and was reportedly in Las Vegas on the day before their final game of the season.

In the Netflix documentary Untold: Johnny Football that was released in August 2023, Manziel admitted to using OxyContin and cocaine every day after the 2015 season that resulted in his weight going from 215 pounds to 175 pounds in the span of eight months.

Manziel returned to professional football in 2018 in the CFL. He played a total of 16 games between the Montreal Alouettes and Hamilton Tiger-Cats. He also appeared in two games for the Memphis Express during the AAF's lone season in 2019.

Most recently, Manziel appeared in five games over two seasons in Fan Controlled Football from 2021 to '22.

The family of Johnny Manziel attempted to set a seven-figure price tag in order to get him to stay at Texas A&M, according to the man himself.

"It's the spring of 2014, December 2013, right in there about December/January, I'm getting ready to make this decision on if I'm going to the NFL Draft or if I'm going to stay," he said on Shannon Sharpe's Club Shay Shay podcast (via Thomas Goldkamp of On3). "And I found this out five years later from my dad.

"But my dad went and had a meeting with Kevin Sumlin. And pretty much went to him man to man and was like, 'We'll take $3 million and we'll stay for the next two years.' And my dad says this is as true today as he did when he told me."

The 2012 Heisman Trophy winner estimated at the 1:06:55 mark he would've been worth "probably" $10 million in NIL endorsements after his redshirt sophomore season. He said he could've collected $5 million through his social media channels alone.

It's not as though college athletes haven't achieved mainstream exposure, but those who didn't witness the Johnny Football era may struggle to truly appreciate how popular he was.

The dynamic quarterback was a rock star with the Midas touch in College Station. Thanks in no small part to Manziel's contributions, Aggies head coach Kevin Sumlin secured a massive extension and the school undertook a massive renovation to Kyle Field.

Perhaps Manziel was exaggerating a bit in terms of what he might've collected in endorsements. USC guard Bronny James has the highest NIL valuation on On3, and that's only $5.8 million.

However, there's no question he would've been a rich man before he ever hit the NFL. And $3 million for two seasons would've been a bargain for A&M.

Former Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel has some regrets about how he handled his relationship with former Cavaliers star LeBron James when they two were playing in Cleveland.

Manziel, who has been open about his battle with depression, told Shannon Sharpe on Club Shay Shay that James tried to be there for him during his tenure in Cleveland and that he brushed off the support from the now four-time NBA champion because he "was so depressed" and struggled to get out of bed.

Manziel siad:

I remember, this is how bad off I was whenever I was in Cleveland, LeBron would text me every week to come over to the house and watch a game or play poker with the boys and just tried to be there, and I was so depressed for the first time in my life that even my biggest role model and inspiration in my life couldn't get me out of bed to come and hang out with him.

When I went to the Cavs games I went. I was in, I was out. I didn't really grasp and latch on to him in a way that I should have. And he tries to take me under his wing, and I'm just kind of nudging it away because of where my mental is and being just fully depressed, and where I was in my life. Is that an excuse? Absolutely not, because at the end of the day, the respect that I should have for them, giving me everything, should trump all else.

Manziel added that he's embarrassed about how he handled his relationship with a number of people during his time in Cleveland, including James and Hall of Fame left tackle Joe Thomas:

It's tough. It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing to have been the guy that have let down some overall really great athletes in my time and in my generation. It's something I carry hopefully with my head high right now but at the same time, internally, I know it eats me alive because they did more for me than I had gave in return to them.

And what a shallow kind of selfish way of life that I was living at that point in time and I have a lot regret, like, I regret wasting a couple of Joe Thomas' last years in Cleveland. I regret disrespecting LeBron and not making sure what it meant to me. Showing him that I give a f--k enough to just do what's right. To listen to Mav and listen to the team they built around me.

Manziel was selected by the Browns in the first round of the 2014 draft out of Texas A&M. He was the second quarterback off the board behind Blake Bortles and he entered Cleveland with a significant amount of hype.

The 31-year-old appeared in just two seasons for the Browns, suiting up in 14 games across 2014 and 2015, as he struggled with issues off the field.

Manziel's comments to Sharpe are telling about where he was mentally during his tenure with the Browns, and they serve as a reminder that athletes, like everyone else, can sometimes struggle with their mental health.

Manziel told Sharpe that he would love the opportunity to come face-to-face with some of the people he disrespected during his Cleveland tenure and apologize

Johnny Manziel is a college football legend, but even he admitted some of the game's recent greats at quarterback are a cut above when responding to a FanDuel tweet on Tuesday morning.

Manziel, Cam Newton, Tim Tebow and Lamar Jackson all won Heisman Trophies.

Tebow won a pair of national championships, while Newton led the 2010 Auburn team to an undefeated record and a national title.

Tebow accounted for 145 total touchdowns (88 passing, 57 rushing) in his four years at Florida. He was QB1 from 2007-2009 and ultimately led his team to a 35-6 record during that span.

Newton accounted for 51 touchdowns during his lone year as Auburn's start. He threw for 2,854 yards and 30 touchdowns and added 1,473 rushing yards and 20 scores on the ground. Newton even caught a TD pass too.

Jackson is arguably the best dual-threat quarterback in the history of college football. He finished his career with 4,132 rushing yards and 50 touchdowns in three seasons. And then you throw in his passing accolades (9,043 passing yards, 69 touchdowns) to cap off an incredible career.

As for Manziel, he was great in his own right. Manziel vaulted into superstardom after leading Texas A&M to a victory over reigning (and eventual) national champion Alabama in 2012. Manziel led the Aggies to an 11-2 record and a Cotton Bowl victory and earned the Heisman Trophy along the way (45 total touchdowns, 5,156 total yards). The next year wasn't as great from a team perspective, but he still finished with 46 more scores.

Ultimately, all four players were electric. Perhaps Manziel believes he should be cut among those four, but he was still sensational in his own right.

Former Texas A&M legend Johnny Manziel offered to help the Aggies find a new head coach after the program cut ties with Jimbo Fisher.

"I have faith in the TAMU leadership to put somebody in place to get us to where we need to be," he said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. "The pieces for success are in the building. However I can help in any capacity [and] I would love nothing more."

The former Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback helped lead the Aggies to a record of 11-2 in 2012, including a blowout win against Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl. He followed it up with a 2013 campaign that resulted in a fifth-place finish in Heisman voting.

Manziel ended his college career with 7,820 passing yards, throwing 63 touchdowns against 22 interceptions. His mesmerizing escapability in the pocket has been rivaled by few college players over the past decade.

While he offered to assist in the search for a new face to lead the program, he commended Fisher in an earlier post.

"In my experiences Jimbo Fisher allowed me to immerse myself in the [Texas A&M] program from the very first day on the job," said Manziel. "I thank you for allowing me to spend time in the building with the guys and treating me with the utmost respect."

Fisher was fired after leading the team to a record of just 11-11 over the past two seasons. The Aggies have not played in a bowl game since 2020.

Former Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel took to Instagram to thank Drake for bringing him out during his walk through the crowd before his recent concert in Houston.

"Honored to be a part of your journey @champagnepapi," Manziel wrote in a post that included a video of the walk and a photo of them doing their signature handshake. "You and your music have changed my life for the better. Thank you for letting the kid from Texas share that moment with you."

Drake has made his walk through the crowd a staple of his "It's All a Blur" tour. He's brought out multiple sports stars during different tour stops, including LeBron and Bronny James, Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Kevin Durant.

Per TMZ, Drake and Manziel became friends when Manziel was the starting quarterback at Texas A&M. His "Draft Day" track mentions Manziel and the 2014 NFL draft. Manziel also has an "OVO" tattoo on his wrist.

Former Texas A&M superstar quarterback Johnny Manziel said it's "complete bulls--t" that the NCAA took away ex-USC legendary running back Reggie Bush's Heisman Trophy.

Manziel's remark was in response to a tweet from ex-professional cornerback Eric Crocker of Locked on 49ers.

After watching the recently released Untold: Johnny Football documentary, Crocker wondered why Manziel was able to keep his Heisman despite taking money for selling autographs, which was illegal under NCAA rules when Manziel played in the early 2010s.

Bush, who won the Heisman in 2005, voluntarily gave his trophy back five years later following an NCAA investigation.

Ryan Kartje of the Los Angeles Times explained what happened:

"Bush returned his Heisman Trophy following a four-year NCAA investigation that found Bush to be retroactively ineligible for his trophy-winning 2005 season because he and his family accepted impermissible benefits that included cash, travel expenses and a rent-free San Diego-area home.

"In June 2010, the NCAA issued harsh sanctions to USC, which was forced to vacate the 2004 national title, relinquish 30 scholarships and permanently disassociate from Bush, whose presence was erased from USC and the NCAA record books.

"That disassociation ban was finally lifted in June 2020 after 10 years. Earlier this week, the last vestige of the landmark infractions case was decided out of court, as former USC running backs coach Todd McNair settled a defamation suit he had filed against the NCAA for an undisclosed sum, more than a decade after he was handed a show-cause penalty by the NCAA."

These days, athletes can profit off their name, image and likeness, leading to greater calls for Bush to get his hard-earned trophy back, including one from Manziel now.

However, that still has yet to materialize, and the Heisman Trust has said it will not do so unless the NCAA restores Bush's records. That has not happened.

Regardless of whether or not Bush gets his well-deserved Heisman back, he'll still go down as one of the greatest college football players of all time. In 2005, when Bush won his Heisman, the star runner amassed 2,218 total yards and 18 touchdowns in just 13 games, rushing for 8.7 yards per carry along the way.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers star Mike Evans lauded former college teammate Johnny Manziel for being candid about his mental health struggles in the past.

In the Netflix documentary Untold: Johnny Football, Manziel said he contemplated suicide after the Cleveland Browns released him in 2016. The former Texas A&M quarterback went so far as to purchase a gun, which he said "just clicked on me" when he pulled the trigger.

Evans, who played alongside Manziel on the Aggies in 2012 and 2013, said he was hearing the story for the first time like everyone else.

"I knew he was in a very dark place; I didn't know about that," he told ESPN's Jenna Laine. "I care about him, but, you know, I didn't know about his suicide attempt. That was news."

Evans added that "it was very noble of him to do what he did" in addressing the suicide attempt and his bipolar disorder diagnosis.

ESPN's Wright Thompson profiled Manziel in 2013 and detailed how the Heisman Trophy winner was adapting to the challenges of his newfound fame. His father, Paul, told Thompson he thought his son drank "to deal with the stress."

Manziel's substance abuse issues continued after he moved on the NFL. He briefly entered a treatment facility in 2015 and said in Untold he used cocaine and OxyContin after that season ended. The 30-year-old said his 2016 suicide attempt followed what he called a "$5 million bender."

Addressing the documentary, Manziel told USA Today's Scooby Axson he continues to get questions from fans about his life and football career. He saw Untold as a vehicle to provide the answers.

"Able to put a bow on the 'Johnny Football' side of things, to stop a lot of those questions that I get and be able to tell an amazing story and be able to move on with my life," he said. "I got an amazing opportunity with Netflix and untold to be able to do this. And it felt right."

Johnny Manziel's NFL career lasted all of two seasons and 14 games. A lack of film study probably played a pretty huge role.

Manziel admitted during the Netflix documentary Untold: Johnny Football that he didn't watch a single minute of tape during his two tumultuous seasons with the Cleveland Browns.

It's nearly impossible to make it to the NFL as a quarterback in the first place. Only 32 people in the world earn starting quarterback positions per week. So not watching a moment of film is an easy way to quickly lose your position.

Manziel's two-year career was brutal. After being a first-round pick he threw for 1,675 yards, seven touchdowns and seven interceptions in 14 games (eight starts), completing just 57 percent of his passes while taking 22 sacks and rushing for 259 yards and a score.

There were always questions about whether Manziel could maintain his swashbuckling style of play in the NFL, even after winning the Heisman Trophy in 2012. Now we have further insight into why his professional career never took off.

Former Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel recently revealed he attempted suicide around the time his NFL career ended.

In the new Netflix documentary Untold: Johnny Football (h/t The Athletic's David Ubben), Manziel said he attempted to end his life soon after the Cleveland Browns released him in March 2016.

"I had planned to do everything I wanted to do at that point in my life, spend as much money as I possibly could and then my plan was to take my life," he says in the documentary. "I wanted to get as bad as humanly possible to where it made sense, and it made it seem like an excuse and an out for me."

Manziel explained he purchased a gun "months earlier" and planned to use it to carry out his plan, but it malfunctioned when he attempted to pull the trigger.

"Still to this day, don't know what happened," he says. "But the gun just clicked on me."

Ubben noted Manziel, whose relationship with his family was "strained" at this point," also said he used OxyContin and cocaine on a daily basis after the 2015 season to the point he lost 40 pounds over an eight-month period in 2016 from January to September.

In a February 2016 interview with the Dallas Morning News (h/t Kara Sutyak of Fox 8 in Cleveland), Manziel's father, Paul, said he was afraid his son "won't live to see his 24th birthday" if he didn't seek help and he had refused to enter rehab on two different occasions.

In a 2018 interview with Good Morning America (h/t ESPN.com), Manziel said he quit drinking alcohol and was on medication after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Manziel hasn't played in the NFL after the Browns released him. He's had stints in the Canadian Football League, Alliance of American Football and, most recently, Fan Controlled Football.

The full documentary is set to be released on Netflix on Aug. 8.

If you or someone you know is in immediate crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988 for 24/7 access to a trained counselor. You can also contact the Crisis Text Line by texting "HOME" to 741741. For more information about ongoing support and mental health resources, contact the HelpLine at the National Alliance on Mental Illness by calling 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or emailing info@nami.org.