Ignorant remarks by Ticats coach won’t help Manziel

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This article was published 01/01/2018 (3195 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Now that the Hamilton Tiger-Cats are on the clock to offer the hyperbole of hype, Johnny “Football” Manziel, a contract, there will be significant challenges for him to navigate on his way to becoming “the best football player to ever play in the CFL.”

That statement, by new Ticats head coach June Jones, is so naive and ignorant on so many levels I’m running out of fingers and toes to count them on. In case you missed it, just over three weeks ago, Jones proclaimed, “I think he’d (Manziel) be the best player to ever play up here. He can throw it and he can run it like nobody ever has been able to do.”

This is a perfect teaching tape on how to set an athlete up for failure before he ever steps onto the field.

While these remarks will go down as some of the most uninformed and historically disrespectful ever uttered by an American coach north of the border, it will be an even bigger problem for Manziel. You may think it will blow over and that players, coaches and the media will forget it, but they won’t.

There are few things players and teams in Canada love more, and do better, than showing an overconfident and underprepared American player and coach just how wrong they were about the degree of difficulty in dominating a game. We Canadians already have a chip on our shoulder and a bit of a complex with our southern neighbours, so we relish all opportunities to hand out doses of humility and reality.

Jones has set an impossible bar and standard for a player who has only played 15 games professionally and started just eight of them — and has painted a huge bull’s-eye on his back.

It’s easy to picture a Shawn Lemon of the Argonauts, or any other number of characters, sacking him multiple times and/or knocking him out of a game as he initially struggles to adjust. When asked for comment afterwards, with an international spotlight on them and tongue firmly in cheek, you might hear something along the lines of, “I just took advantage of my opportunity to take down the best player that has ever played in Canada. It looks good on my resumé.”

Respect has to be earned in the Canadian Football League, even by accomplished NFL players such as Chad Ochocinco and Ricky Williams, let alone a player that hasn’t done anything since college. Jones truly has no idea the kind of gauntlet he erected for an athlete that is going to have a hard enough time adjusting to Canadian football, without the added pressure of “best ever” nonsense.

For a player who has struggled with distractions and temptations off the field, the CFL is also the furthest thing from a polite, northern daycare or antidote for idle hands.

In fact, the NFL has far more structure and responsibilities during the day than the CFL ever will. You have to be at the stadium longer every day, and you have more boxes to check in the NFL.

Those who are successful in the CFL are the ones that have the discipline to put in the extra time and hours, outside of what is scheduled, when nobody is watching and when no one is taking attendance.

Back in my day, we had a few players who could be at the neighbouring Earls Polo Park watering hole by two or three o’clock in the afternoon, and occasionally stay there until it shut down. We would know this, because they also occasionally forgot to pay their tabs, and would have to go back the next day after practice to settle up.

Yes indeed, football may not be quite as ordained or revered in Canada as it is in America, but you can still get into a mess of trouble up here, especially if you are attracted to the spotlight and don’t keep your nose to the grindstone.

If he signs a deal, Manziel will be a target north of the border, both on the field and off. And if he doesn’t take his job seriously, and structure his commitment to the game outside of what is required, not only will he get exposed and not succeed, but his hope to use the CFL as a springboard back to the NFL will backfire.

Doug Brown, once a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears weekly in the Free Press.

Twitter: @DougBrown97