It was less than a month ago that veteran offensive tackle Joe Thomas publicly questioned Johnny Manziel's commitment to football, expressing hope that "when [Manziel] comes back in April we see a new Johnny and everybody's blown away with his commitment."
Joe Thomas says Johnny Manziel’s commitment is ‘night and day’ from last year
Thomas has seen a transformed Manziel in the Browns facility this month, saying that the troubled quarterback has finally realized that the NFL is “a big boy’s game.”
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It would seem that Manziel has lived up to the challenge ... so far. Thomas told Andrea Kremer of NFL Media that since returning to the Cleveland Browns facilities, the young quarterback has been "night and day from where he was last year in his commitment."
“Last year on a Saturday, you might see a picture of him on Instagram floating on a swan drinking champagne,” Thomas said. “This year on a Saturday, if you came in the building, you’d see him studying his playbook and watching film with his coach.
“He’s realized that in the NFL you maybe can’t get away with some of the things that he did in college because it’s a big boy’s game now.”
After bringing in Josh McCown in the offseason and publicly acknowledging they could take another quarterback in this weekend's draft, the Browns have made it clear that they're willing to move on from Manziel if he can't straighten up his act. But if Manziel has indeed committed himself -- and Thomas was careful to note that it's still far too early to tell if that's truly the case -- he might have a chance to become the franchise quarterback Cleveland hoped he would when they took him in last year's first round.
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