Club Shay Shay - Club Shay Shay - Johnny Manziel Part 2 REWIND

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

Johnny Manziel continues the conversation with self-awareness of the spectacle that followed him in college and acknowledges the tens of millions of dollars he might have garnered in today's NIL era and passionately advocates for the NCAA to return Reggie Bush his Heisman Trophy. Johnny answers if the infamous "Drake Curse" is real, and Manziel explains why he couldn't have played for the Dallas Cowboys. Lastly, Money Manziel apologies to Skip Bayless, Drake, and LeBron for not reaching the heights they expected him to during his NFL career. This episode goes into overtime with the amount of sports anecdotes, reflections, and humorous confessions Johnny offers as signal caller.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Thank you for coming back. Part two is underway. You went to high school as a freshman, you come back your sophomore year, and you have some issues. We start the season off with, well, it's reported that Johnny Manziel signed four thousand items and this and that. Allegedly. Allegedly.

Allegedly Johnny signed four thousand items for free. So, Johnny signed 4,000 items for free. So, Johnny, you got, why put yourself in that situation where it could be allegedly? I got a head on my shoulders, man. I'm smart enough to know what's going around me. I'm seeing the money fly around me. Right. I'm not walking through that same bookstore watching those number two jerseys fly

off the shelf. Break me off. Where my cut? It's everywhere else for everybody else. Yes. I got $700 a month coming in on stipend. That ain't enough for me to do what I want to do. You need to sell bands a month coming in huh? I need 70 bands. 70 bands? Come on! 7? 70? How the hell am I travel to Miami with seven bands? What are we doing with seven bands here? I need 70. Wow. Let me ask you this. Let's just say for the sake of argument when Johnny Manziel his Heisman husband trophy season and the season after The NIL is an existence. How much Johnny how much Johnny football get by 10 million a year? I Could have done five on my own with the Instagram I

Could have done five million a year on my own just through the people and connections I had on my phone, right? That's what a lot of people don't understand is during this time and during this rise and a lot of where my downfall probably came from is I get on my phone and get on Twitter and be like, yo, Shannon Sharp, just follow me. Come on, James Harden, Drake, LeBron. Are you partying with him? I'm a DM away from being Rockets courtside. I'll be there in an hour and a half

My access that I had to the world and people that I wanted to be around Was limitless with just my cell phone in a in a house in College Station Had Johnny Manziel been a little bit more discreet You probably still could have gotten that T, but because IG and you posted it, you at Liv and you at all these places with the stars, they're like, man, ain't no way hell no college athlete has that kind of access. Unless he get broke off. My family's rich.

Yeah. And so is that, and see you play to it because you could use it. You know, Johnny doing that, man, Johnny wouldn't take no money his family rich. Well little did they know Johnny ain't worth 50 million dollars like being reported Correct so I Wasn't discreet at that point in my life not at all all. I wasn't calculated. I wasn't precise and how I was moving I was 19 years old, right? I Don't know nothing about the real way of the world, right? I don't know nothing about that happens in Miami, right?

I'm a young naive kid out here trying to get a bag on my own, right? I don't know nothing and I can't tell my parents Can't tell my coaches. I don't got nobody to bounce this information off of. You know, and this is the point where I start like recluse into myself and like big problem in my life, Shannon, has been I wake up every day for the last 10, 12 years and do exactly as I please and exactly as I want every single day. And as I'm moving forward in my life right now, I believe that as a man in life, to humble yourself and to be able to get to where you want to go,

you have to do things that you don't want to do. Right. You have to do things that make you uncomfortable. You can't just wake up and go down this path of la-di-da, I'm going to do everything as I please in that moment of time. That's going to make you soft. That's going to make you you got all these things that come with that. And my opinion, if you go out and put yourself in uncomfortable situations,

if you go out and work hard for what you want, which isn't the most glorified way all the time, you know, it's not fun to go work hard and put your time and your effort into something, especially something you may not really love truly deep down to your core. So, you know, what I've learned in life is, you know, make yourself uncomfortable. Do things that you don't wanna do to help others.

You know, be selfless. Find a way to give back more than just thinking about yourself. And I'm sitting here today saying at 19 years old, I was only about self. You know, that first year is my Heisman year, there was a lot less of that. I had my camaraderie with the team. I was a leader. I was there for my dogs. And then as that shifts, I became a bad teammate.

I became a bad role model. I became a bad example for what a Texas A&M University football player should be and an ambassador for my school at that point in time. And I still to this day hold a lot of shame about things that I did from 19 to 27, 28 years old. Shame, Shannon. To where I couldn't sleep at night, to where I went into the LA and the Hollywood Hills and I hid, hid from everybody except the TMZ cameras in the middle of the night.

And that, for me, has taken a decade to come to terms with what happened in my life and what I did to myself. Because at the end of the day, I don't have anybody to blame but myself. My mom and dad didn't raise me to be that. And Coach Summoner, Coach Kingsbury, or any of those guys at Texas A&M didn't raise me to be that way. My teammates sure as hell didn't push me down

that path of being there. So why did it happen? You know, that is the question that have taken me a decade to find out what makes me who I am. And coming to terms and accepting who I am. The good, okay, great. That's awesome.

That's unequivocally me. The bad, okay, let's find out and identify what that is and be better bit by bit, day by day to ensure that what happened in the past ain't gonna happen again moving forward. If Johnny football persona had never been created do you still go down that path? Yeah I do without a doubt from that day in Kerrville you know from getting to there and being that guy and like getting a rise out of it and getting notoriety and people coming around you. Fame is a... It's a drug, it's addictive. Oh, it's a high.

It's a chase the dragon of fame, man. You chase the dragon of clout. And it is very, very addictive. And it is a problem that I dealt with in my life. And if you would have asked me in 2014 or 15, I would have been like, nah. Because for a long time, I didn't see myself as the true level of fame of what I really was. Who dived you out for those uh uh that autograph signing?

Somebody dived you out. Somebody got stuck with a lot of merch a lot of stuff that they couldn't sell and then from there they got stuck with maybe like 20 000 dollars worth of product and the compliance department was cracking down on indie autographs that were on eBay and this and that so they lost their avenue of how to get rid of their product right and they got stuck and the guy went to the University of Texas was in Houston he blew the whistle and then it all started to crumble down and it happened quick if you'd have had somebody behind the scenes working, because Texas A&M is, those boosters,

they want what you gave them. You gave them a Heisman Trophy, you almost led them to a national championship. If you'd have had somebody working behind the scenes, to say, look, let's keep this kid happy. This is all it's gonna take, because you mentioned your dad. You said, told Kevin Sumlin you didn't know anything

about this for three mil. That's a drop in the bucket, considering that you could have made 10. So I would say like for five million, he'll stay. Won't ever say a word about this. And you say, Kevin Sumlin looked at him like, bro, we gonna keep this train rolling without Johnny. I needed Cliff.

I needed Kingsbury for that situation to go in a perfect way. So you needed Cliff to be your offensive coordinator because he left. I needed Cliff to be my offensive coordinator, and I needed Cliff to be that role model in my life when I got too out of whack. Because that first year of my freshman red shirt,

my Heisman year, I was skirting the line a little bit. But every time I started to get here, he went, pull you back. Every time focus, and I looked at him. From that day, he came on that high school field to come look at me and tell me he couldn't offer me I had a trust with him. And a bond with him. I still have to this day. And when he left, the fuck sucked. I'm looking at this.

They say they sold 45 million, number two, Texas A&M Adidas jerseys. Maybe 45 million in revenue. 45 million, a lot of jerseys. Texas, well, okay, 45 million. And so if they'd have gave you say here Johnny We go give you 5% I'll take 10 You're right you're right you're right, okay five five

But when you see when you see Texas they're making 45 million in Jersey sales and Johnny Manziel getting 700 me $700 in a stipend that doesn't sit right with you, does it? It didn't. So you start concocting a way how you can get some of that pie. Exactly. I got my pie. But you knew, you knew that it was wrong.

You knew that you could get yourself in trouble and potentially the university. But at that point in time, what? Yes. I knew that it was against the university. But at that point in time, what? Yes. I knew that it was against the rules. I know that I'm putting myself in a position that may not work out well for me or my university. But at that time, once again,

going back to selfish Johnny Manziel, I'm thinking about how to get that, I'm trying, how I get that stipend bumped up type of, I'm thinking about the money at this point. Like, I don't expect myself, even after winning the Heisman Trophy, to be able to go get drafted. I didn't know if that was a sure thing

to go to the NFL draft or be able to make any money. So I know what I needed then. I needed more money. And, you know, with that money that I got as well, you know, I took care of my dogs in the locker room. You know, in a big college locker room, there's dudes in there that send in half their stipend or all their stipend back home, and they're taking six to go boxes out of the athletic facility. They go into the apartment and there's no lights on.

You see, and this is what I see, people come from all different walks of life that walk into these locker rooms. They don't come from Kerrville, Texas from the suburbs all the time. They come from the trenches. And I bond with people that come from nothing. Me and Mike Evans, like this, he's from Galveston, Texas, born on the island. It is no joke down there. Where he's from is a different way of life. And I've seen, because of the sport that I played, how all these people come in from different walks of life. And it's not as peachy as you think it may be.

It's not all rainbows and butterflies out there for some of these kids that come in. And it's tough. And I took care of my dogs. Right. All this money didn't just go to me. A lot of it did. But if my boys needed something, they got it.

And if I wasn't there, that club, that tab at the club was... Picked up. Always. Did your parents know you was getting this money? Oh yeah. Cause you breaking them off too, huh? Mm-mm.

I don't know, how you ain't break mom and dad off? Mom and dad are doing fine. Mom and dad are living at the biggest golf course in town. Dad's got his best job he's ever had. Right. What you want? Did you help him get the job? No. My dad is independent on his own to be able to go do that. I'm sure my name and what was going on, of course, might have helped it. But, you know,

I was finding out and it was like hard to just be like, what do you do with this cash? You know, I can't, how do you book a flight? How are you going to go somewhere? Like, what do you do with cash? How do you check into a hotel? How do you do this? So it was like, You didn't have any credit cards? You didn't get no credit cards, Johnny? I ain't know nothing about a credit card until I got to Cleveland, Ohio. I don't know nothing. I would go buy American Express gift cards for a thousand bucks in cash and then have that.

Then I got to keep track of how much is on every balance and stuff. I'm going through Amex gift cards like this going out of style. So I didn't know anything about a credit card. I didn't know anything about credit. Nothing. Let's, uh, Reggie, Reggie Bush, similar situation. I guess his parents took, uh parents took some money over there, living in a house, and he ended up having

his Heisman Trophy taken from him. Do you believe Reggie should get his Heisman Trophy back? Without a doubt. It's legal now. What Reggie did then is legal now that somebody could do. It wouldn't make him ineligible now, even though it did at the time. And in the grand scheme

of things, I probably did way worse than Reggie. Right. And everybody's going to sit here and be like, why does he still have his Heisman where Reggie doesn't? I can tell you the exact reason why. I explained this on Twitter and people didn't really understand it. But the way I was told, because the last

three, four years I've been walking back into the Heisman. I've been rallying the board, talking with the guys. There's chatter. There's chirp going around that nobody in this crew in this Heisman fraternity. It sits right with us. The Reggie ain't up there with us every year. It makes every one of us sitting there choice myth. All these guys that I sit next to on. He deserves to be on that stage with us every year unequivocally

without a doubt, without a question. One of the best college football players to ever lace them up. And a very, very good argument to be the best ever in college football. Do you believe he'll get his trophy back? What I've been told is that Reggie can't get his Heisman trophy back until the NCAA makes his records and his accolades on the field for that year reinstated. As we know what the NCAA is now, what

do you think the chances are that they're going to do the right thing? Not looking likely. Not looking likely, and it's sad. And from the top down, from the NCAA, they've been so wrong with so many things that you would hope that one day they would do the right thing and do this. I'm going to continue to do everything that I can in my power, whatever that may be.

I'm just a little guy. I'm just the old first freshman to win it. I don't have no I ain't got the clout like I used to to be able to really make that happen. But for what I can and my part, I will always stand on this table right here for Reggie Bush and do anything that I can in my power to make sure that it's possible for him to even get his trophy back. What's your best guess as to why Coach Saban walked away from the game still coaching at the highest level?

I think the NIL has changed everything for what he's known. I think it's made it so much more hands-on and continually having to stay on these guys because of how many people are in their ear. It's not the firm handshake anymore. It's not the old school ways of the world where your word is your bond and this and that is A very wishy-washy Where's the money today? Right? And if it's today somebody who can outbid you where's your loyalty? Just 16 17 year old kids were talking about you right?

So in my opinion Saban doesn't want to deal with that anymore and what better way than to go out the way that he did You know from what I've seen and what I saw in the media, he's still very involved in the program. I mean, he retires and then goes back into the office at work the next day. So Nick Saban is it, he's him. He is exactly what you expect him to be. And when I met him in New York,

that second year of 2013 when I went back, I remember him walking into the room. It was AJ McCarran was a finalist, I think. And I don't think I'm, I think AJ was a finalist. And he walks into the room and it's just like, I remember it like this cloud, huge aura of a person walking in, you know. He's not that big. But the way he carries himself and the aura that he has around him is like nobody you're ever gonna come in contact with.

And I remember him walking into the room and shaking his hand and talking to him for a second. And then that conversation kind of fades and we go on about the night. And for the rest of my life, I'll never forget that moment of him walking in. That guy. Is it a situation now with the NIL no matter how great a coach is you see in basketball coach K walks away Roy Williams walks away some of the Pantheon

greats has like so now it's really a level playing field because Alabama is like okay we're gonna put you in the NFL but now somebody say well they're gonna put you in the NFL. But now somebody say, well, they're gonna put you in the NFL, but we're gonna get you $2 million. So now it has it leveled the playing field or has it created an unequal playing field? There was already an unequal playing field. I feel like so if anything, it's given the littler guys a chance. I gives the Colorado's right.

Yeah. Get a guy like prime, take your program from here to here. You're getting a little bit more level. You have the transfer portal. You know Colorado can now take people from Alabama or Georgia that don't want to go there just based off the transfer portal. So I think it's brought it up and made a little even. You know college football goes in those waves of like you got your Florida dynasty. You got your USC one, you have Texas with a little run in there, you know, you got your Ohio State, you got your Bama, Georgia, you have your runs of like I didn't want to go on this whole SEC tangent. It is what it is. So I mean there has always been

teams every year throughout the year that are a little bit above and below the others. You can always have the little guy that comes up and has that magical run, but for the most part, you know, it is a little lopsided. It is hard for those acrons or bowling, like it is harder for those D1 lower schools to ever really get in the conversation. And in my opinion, I think this is a better way or only way that they can really ever even recruit on the same level as anybody else. And that'll mostly be through the transfer portal. Yeah, but do you do you 25 years, 25 players before training camp kickstarts a new NFL season. NFL Daily is

going to look back. It is a special six episode series where myself, Greg Rosenthal, and some of the top NFL minds like Kevin Harlan, Mina Kimes, and Bill Barnwell make the case for each player. We're taking a look back, giving you NFL Daily's top 25 players of the last 25 years. So who made the list? You know, Tom Brady's on it. Where's Patrick Mahomes? Mahomes is under the end zone! Touchdown, Kansas City! He's on it. How about Lamar Jackson? Jackson takes it himself.

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See these teams now, you see it probably Alabama and Ohio State and Michigan and all these teams. They're like, they're probably going to their boosters or they go into the college and look, man, we got to have a fun. We got to have 25, $30 million in order to get these kids. It's been now you see, look, and talking dollars in order to get these kids And now you see look And talking to coach prime is like, you know You see guys going into the portal because these guys have already been in college and so you kind of know

Okay, they understand the college they got to go to class. They got to go to study hall They've already played college ball and played at a high level So it's a little easier for you to break a guy off that's in the portal because you know, look at Addison. He wins the Balintnikov and he changes schools. That's unheard of. You would have never got a guy that wins a Buccus or win an award.

Do you, a award like that, the Gursky or whatever the case may be, the Thorpe. And transfer schools, Johnny. What if I told you that after Cliff Kingsbury left and I won the Heisman that I thought about maybe going somewhere else, too How would how much it was gonna take for them to break you off for you to even get for you to even consider it I don't know at that point in time, you know, I was thinking about like, you know, I loved A&M And I but this way that like could you feel the shift? Could I feel the shift? I don't know. I could see that I was getting used a little bit into what they needed me to do to have their master plan, right? A&M had their vision of what they needed with this hype and the success to get

the program as a whole where they needed to be. Unfortunately, where they needed to go and where I needed to go and grow as a human being and as a football player weren't always step-in-step. They weren't always aligned. Do I have hard feelings about it or do I feel any kind of way about it right now? Absolutely not. I love my school, I love what happened.

I love walking back into that stadium and feeling like I had a piece of putting one of these bricks in The walls outside and I can carry myself and say that I don't think I don't think it's the house of Johnny bill That's what they call it. They can call it what they want. You got it. You got it like that Like yeah, that's disrespectful to Mike Evans That's disrespectful to Jake Matthews. Well Mike Evans Evans, they didn't call Mike Evans a Mike football. They called you Johnny football. They didn't call Jake Matthews a Luke Jokel.

OK, so I get the praise for what we do as a team, because my play is special on the field. Let me ask you a question. When you a little kid, they're like, all right, who want to play O-line? Raise your hand. Who want to play DB? Raise your hand.

Who want to play quarterback? Exactly. They chose the position So it's a positional thing you're giving the quarterback. Yes, the rightful piece of the pie So which one of those guys was flying private probably just me Okay, who was buying jewelry cars probably just me. Yeah. Yeah. Well who was hanging with Drake and James slitting courts out of James Harden? Definitely. Yes. he's not. You understand? It was the house that Johnny built.

Okay, so you put it that way. I mean, you ain't never gonna get me to admit to it. But help me understand this, Johnny. I'm trying to figure out how you get suspended for half a game. I mean, that's like, I'm gonna suspend you from school, but you don't have to come to first, second, and third, but you get to come fourth, fifth and sixth. You know what I asked? I asked if I could be suspended for the second half because we'd be up so much in the first

half. Right. They said no. I mean, so what was it like knowing that you're not going to play the first half and then you got to come in, I mean, you come in cold the second half. Nerve-racking. Really, really the height of any nerves that I've ever had other than that Bengals game that I started my first game in the NFL.

Crazy nervous so much the first play that we drew up this beautiful bunch formation with the outside motion coming in. And we knew we were going to get him in the trail. And we knew it split right we knew We do the scissor off in Quarters he's gonna take that corner for sure and we're gonna bust right down the middle I catch the ball take three steps and I'm seeing red at this point

I drop back and the line opens up and I just see this one linebacker and I'm just looking at him down the eyes and like I'm not even seeing nothing back here, right? them down in the eyes and like, I'm not even seeing nothing back here. Right. Me and you. Me and you, come on. That was how I started my games in college. And we started with so many running plays because when I got hit the first time and

I got a pop, it settled me down to the point of where I could go on about our offensive scheme for the first day. So going into that game, you know, suspended the first half, coming back out the first play of the second half, we draw up this beautiful touchdown and it works. But I'm just like so laser focused and locked in on getting hit so I can kind of settle down and go. And, you know, that half went fine. I don't think we played very good football because it's hard to get that

flow going when you're not playing in the first half, come in in the second. But really, really the almost the pinnacle of my nerves of college football in that setting. But Johnny, you kept signing autographs, you kept partying. Did you feel those things helped you? I mean, did you feel that you function and you played better while doing those things? That's a great question. That's a really good question, because at that point in time in my life, I felt like the harder I partied, the better that I played. How?

My freshman year. Tuesdays and Thursdays were beer with the baseball boys that I was playing games, and Thursdays were hitting Northgate, going to the town, drunk as you could get with all the dogs. Friday was the walkthrough. I'd go to the walkthrough at 10 AM in the morning, dying.

Smelling like a liquor store. Like a liquor store. And then I would go through that walkthrough. And you can ask anybody that was on that team. And I hit those walkthroughs hard. Right. Handing the fake. I'm taking off down the sideline for 20, 30 yards, running back. I'm sweating it out. You try to sweat it out. Oh, yeah. Then we get on the plane. Right. Handing the fake, I'm taking off down the sideline for 20, 30 yards, running back.

I'm sweating it out. You try to sweat it out. Oh, yeah. Then we get on the plane. Right. Get to the hotel, meetings. This is the system, and we're winning. Right.

Now we're 11 and 2. We beat Bama in this whole year. It's Tuesday, Thursday. Bang, bang. All week, every time, like clockwork, every game of the season that year. And I'm getting better as it goes on. I ain't losing a step until that first offseason in 2013. That's when I'm starting to smoke more weed. That's when I'm partying a lot more. And then

from there, I'm not taking care of myself in the way that I did the year before to go be special. And my numbers my second year, were better. That's what I needed to do at that point in time I needed to get you guys or whoever it was on first take or this and that talking in the right direction that this is these are my you know this guy went back and did better than he did the year before. So therefore what is the next step? The next step is the league, the show, the big thing. And that's where I was at in my life.

I felt like I did enough for my. OK. I was living my life at that point in time to appease what other people expected from me or wanted from me. I wasn't living really in the right way. I mean, obviously I wasn't, but like I was there to like tell people what they wanted to hear and like had these people around me. This is how you need to carry yourself. And in that I lost who I was. And when you

lose who you are, you resort to other things in your life to numb that pain or to find yourself. And in that I found smoking weed, and that I found partying. And that kind of took over from there, 2013 on. And there's no reason, there's no reason other than exactly what my behavior was, 2013, on why 2014 and 15 in Cleveland didn't work out. There's no secret that I was doing the same thing on a Thursday night in Cleveland

that I had been doing for the Thursday night in College Station. Number one, because I'm the backup, I just got handed all this money and I'm not taking it seriously enough because I don't know how to be a professional. I had no idea. Now I get thrown into this organization

with a head coach that wants nothing to do with me from the day that I get there. With the defensive staff that our first day of offensive install day one, they're running six DBs on the field and practice. I can't even point a fucking mic. I ain't never taken a snap under center, but Jimmy O'Neill or whatever, and Mike Petten are going to come out to the field and throw fucking 8 DBs on the field the first day of an install Talk about your confidence getting busted quick now

I feel like I can't do what I was great at in Cleveland and I'm partying and doing what I thought made me great So you see how all these things are compounding together to equal a huge disaster You didn't feel you could do in Cleveland what you had been great at at Texas A&M? Not at all. I had no confidence. I hear you mention, you said on Tuesday night we had this with the baseball team. Thursday night we did this with the other boys.

I ain't hear nothing about no school. I was a good student. How? How what? You partied the whole. My dad, when I was in high school and middle school growing up, if I didn't have A's or B's on my report card,

and that first little six week grade and period that comes out of the three week mark, if I got a C on that on that thing, I'm grounded until I can get an A and B on that next report card. Right. That was my rules forever. So I got to see you're grounded. So you ain't going nowhere. You're doing chores around the house, I'm gonna show you what your education's gonna mean to you.

So when I got to A&M, I went from a business major, sports management, and then when I went to Heisman, I go to ag leadership and development. That's a little bit different than the Mays Business School. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So now I can do my classes online, I can do that. Like, yeah, that was, the school was never the problem for me. Right.

If I applied myself in the slightest bit, I was smart enough to be able to go in and do college. I wasn't ever, I wasn't one of those guys that needed to study hall or the this and that. And I had a lady that was in our athletic department named Lee Hood. And Miss Hood saved my life academically. Just keeping me focused on what it was and not getting too far.

And she was like a true mother to me in that football program. And she is the reason that I was able to even leave Texas A&M and have an opportunity to go to the NFL. And the thing is, Johnny, though, what I've learned is that most good athletes, great athletes can compartmentalize. And it seems like you were really great at compartmentalizing. OK, party. I'm a party. Get school. Get school. Party. Party. Got practice. Practice. Play. Play.

You were able to do in each instance, be at your absolute best. Or as you say it on Thursdays Thursday to Friday at your absolute worst. Yeah, I think I was able to do that with the people that I had around me. You know, with the Lee Hood, with these coaches and like with the right people that Texas A&M did have around. Right. If they weren't there, I wouldn't wouldn't have had a fighting chance at all. But because of how special some of the people were in that building, it gave me an opportunity to flourish in the

smallest of amounts when it comes to that stuff. I'm looking at, I read this, it's like the rumor was you came from oil money. Did you have oil money? My great-grandpa when they came over from Lebanon, they founded, found, you know, oil in East Texas. And it very much was. My family was very, very big. So my grandpa, he had like six brothers and sisters. They hit this huge oil well. So when I'm growing up, I don't even realize

that we have a farm in Tyler with a runway and a hanger in the back and all this stuff. I didn't even really know what it was. My my grandpa. Because of what my great grandpa had done, they had the opportunity to be boys, boys, right? Take the planes. They were big into boxing.

So like Jack Dempsey was a huge like family friend of theirs. You know, they tell me stories about going on these hunts with Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio and all these guys. And I've seen the pictures, like it's as real as it gets. So you have this like, what you saw from me in the lifestyle that I was living, I think was like minorly ingrained to me for what I saw as a kid and what they were doing

in the 50s, 60s, 70s. So it wasn't a far reach for you to like to have what you have because your family did have money. So it wasn't a stretch for you to be flying private and doing all that stuff because your family came for money so you could pass it off like my dad gave me this or my family gave me this and so this wouldn't even better now. How could they prove it? They couldn't because you you you had I just hold on Your dad says what in 2013 you said it's not Garth Brooks money, but it's a lot of money And I don't even know the full detail of it right like I got you know from 18 years old

I'm thrust onto the spotlight. Now I have my own life that, like, I'm living that's, like, separate from that, like, family stuff. It's not as cohesive anymore, right? The fame and everything that comes with what happened to me will break a family apart very, very quick. Who are we going to the game with? Who gets these tickets?

It's all about the clout and on all this stuff. So we as a family were tested and tried throughout this rise as well. It wasn't just a me thing. And that's what I didn't realize until I got cut in Cleveland. And I was a couple of years removed from that. And I remember thinking and hearing from my mom,

like, you don't know how hard it is for us to walk into a restaurant in East Texas. We're dealing with the ramifications of your actions that are going on every day. So when you're going out here acting like an asshole, I gotta walk into my grocery store and get treated like one. And why is that fair to your father and I? And it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Is that where the change came? Because you saw the toll, not only with, I mean, I don't know, maybe you're the last person kind of bricks. Is that where the change came? Because because you saw the toll, not only with I mean, I don't know, maybe the you're the last person to see the toll that is taken on you. But when you hear your mom tell you the tale, the toll that is taken on them because of your actions, and they shouldn't have to suffer for what you're doing to yourself. It's a start. That was the start of it definitely wasn't

definitely wasn't the like final thing that got me to the point of what I'm being able to do and sit here with you today. I think that's a complete understanding and self-awareness of oneself. I, without a doubt, wholeheartedly know myself and what I've done good, what I've done bad. I'm the only one that knows the truth that I've seen through my eyes about everything. So when I got to the point where I'm completely detailed and honest about every situation and what went into it, why I may have done that, that's a continuous evolution of a person that takes longer than five years. You know and I don't think I'm a finished product right now. I just think I'm on to something mentally that is clicking with me allowing me to

be the person I think I should have been. Is this all you or was therapy involved? A lot of self therapy. I mean a lot of times and I mean 2014 after my first season I went and spent three months in rehab in Reading Pennsylvania and I didn't have a normal offseason. I didn't get to like I needed to work on myself and at this time like I learned a lot through that and continuously learned as I went on and And this is a collection of 10 years of, not therapy every day, not therapy every week, but a lot of it is with yourself.

You have to know who you are. You know who you are. You know what you do good. You know what you do bad. You know what you need your team for over here to help you with, to make you the best version of yourself. And for a long time, I've been independent in the sense that I feel like I can do it all by myself.

When in reality, I need family. I need friends. I need my team of people who want nothing from me, who want nothing but the best and love for me, and people that I can trust. Because a lot of time in the past, I didn't have people around me that I could trust really genuinely, truly looking out for my best interests.

Johnny, you mentioned that you partied, you liked to drink alcohol. Was there heavier drugs involved other than alcohol and marijuana? Oh yeah, 100%. In college? No. Once you got to the league?

Yes. That's when the real hiding and reclusing started and man, I've given Cleveland. I've given Cleveland a really really hard time And I think it's all more situation than it is really the city itself Being in a fishbowl city like College Station Ate me up because I couldn't move I couldn't park my car the wrong way I couldn't do anything. I was always spotlight. Yeah, you can then I go to Cleveland I signed with LeBron and mad and then and now LeBron comes back and I'm under LeBron's wing So now this lamp heat lamps even hotter on me. I'm not playing, I don't got confidence on the field, and now I'm taking out my anger on my day to day,

like interaction, my team, I'm struggling, but not letting anybody know. Right. So like my whole like, ride with Cleveland is not really anything, is what I've made it to be. And I think that's just the bitterness of like, how things went, and me not realizing that I did it to myself for a long point

In time, do you remember the first time you tried hard drugs? Oh, yeah Yeah for sure. What what what what was it about it that made you try it? Did you think because I'm Johnny football I can handle this I can do something that no one else has been able to do Do a hard drug and be able to still function and do everything I need to do even though I tried this. Okay, that persona that I had on the football field of being able to have that confidence translated over into the party scene as well. I'm the guy, just like I am on the field, in the club, in the streets. So it's all in front of you if you want it and you're hanging around the wrong circles. It ain't hard to find at all. So you get around people who you think you look up to or this or that, and then it just

goes. And then it kind of goes and it snowballs and it keeps getting worse. And you go from cocaine to Oxycontin to Percocets to mushroom. I look at the mushrooms as a different thing now. That's not a good thing to say, but the the harder drugs, the drugs that like tear you down. I never did anything with needles. Never did anything like that. But the Coke and the Oxy's and the Percocet

were very, very tumultuous in my life and like popped their head, especially the days of wandering around the Hollywood Hills. And it makes sense why you see me so sporadic. And like I was 210 pounds when I left Cleveland. the days of wandering around the Hollywood Hills. And it makes sense why you see me so sporadic and like, I was 210 pounds when I left Cleveland. I was 170 pounds sitting in Vegas that August, that September, October, whatever it was later in that year. How you lose 40 pounds?

You're on a strict diet of blow. Oh, I was about to say, I only, you don't want either one of them. I mean, you lose 40 pounds in that length of time. You don't crack or I was in it. So that's the new thing. To say to say you're right about that, bro. And at that point in time, man, I would look in a mirror

and I didn't see myself any different than when I was in Cleveland. Really? Until I stepped on a scale at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas, I didn't realize I had lost 40 pounds. Wow. At all. And people were hitting me up like this, and I remember these pictures came out, and I was like, damn, what am I doing?

Ah, whatever, we'll figure that out later. Let's go again. Let's go again. So, as an athlete, you're very competitive. When you do drugs, do you still have that competitive nature? Like when you with your boys, you're like, shh, man, I ain't been let you one up me. You can't.

25 years, 25 players. Before training camp kickstarts a new NFL season, NFL Daily is going to look back. It is a special six episode series where myself, Greg Rosenthal, and some of the top NFL minds like Kevin Harlan, Mina Kimes, and Bill Barnwell make the case for each player. We're taking a look back,

giving you NFL Daily's top 25 players of the last 25 years. So who made the list? You know Tom Brady's on it. Where's Patrick Mahomes? Mahomes is under the end zone! Touchdown! Kansas City! He's on it. Where's Patrick Mahomes? Mahomes is into the end zone! Touchdown, Kansas City! He's on it. How about Lamar Jackson? Jackson takes it himself. Look at him.

Dirk back and forth. Oh, he broke his ankles and he's got a touchdown. He is Houdini. You are going to have to listen to find out, listen to NFL Daily's top 25 players of the last 25 years starting on June 30th on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm a tank when it comes to the party. I mean, I could party, hang with the best of them. I ain't saying that to brag. It's not something to really see here and glorify,

but it's true. You put somebody in your, that you think in your life can really go that distance with the Henny or with the drugs or whatever you want. I'm gonna go 12 rounds with you. I mean, Johnny, you a small man, bro. I'm a little thick, I guess. So, Drake does a song, Draft Date.

So Drake does a song, Draft Date. What was it like to hear Drake mention you in a song? And what was it like hanging out with Drake? He's one of the biggest celebs in the world. And here's a college kid, a young college kid just hanging out with him. Yeah, I remember when I went to Toronto for the first time and my mom called me and I could hear the worry in her voice, where are you? Toronto?

Canada? You even have a passport? Yeah, I took it from the safe last week when I came by the house. So like, my relationship with Drake is one that changed my life for the better forever. Still to this day. You know, a pillar of my life. And from the first day I met him, the first day we talked,

our relationship has been pretty constant. And he rides for me as hard as anybody ever has in my life. And I'm thankful for him. I appreciate him. And, you know, I try to let him know whenever I'm with him how much his relationship means to me, how much our friendship means. And it's the coolest thing in the world to me, from that kid in Kerrville, Texas,

to be able to sit there and walk out on the draft, Radio City Music Hall, and there ain't no song playing that you like. It's my song about the day that's happening now. Chills. Right. But what do you think when people say, man Drake cursed you because you know, there's this thing that say that Drake has a curse

that anybody that's doing well, if Drake all of a sudden likes him, they're gonna lose. Who believes in curses like that? That guy's the most positive energy, great aura. Maybe he picks wrong sometimes in the teams or whatever it is or his bets, but that's his life. There is no curse. That's to each his own.

You know, if I handle my business in the proper way, I make him proud. Our relationship changes. So there's a lot of people that I let down and I truly feel like him and LeBron at a point in time were people that I really, really let down. You mentioned that you signed with LeBron and Mav and there are people saying Johnny Manziel will be bigger than LeBron James in Cleveland.

I think that person is Skip Bayless. He definitely believed in you. He does. He believed in you and his thing to his credit. When he believes in a guy, yourself, Tim Tebow. Baker. Baker. Yeah, Skip. I love you, bro.

I hope you know that it was always love. And I honestly feel like I let him down, right? Right. I remember watching first take religiously and being able to see him come on there and ride for me when everything was going on. I remember seeing the passion in his voice and the way he was animated when he would talk about me. So when I signed, I go to Cleveland and this, you know, Johnny Manziel will be bigger than LeBron, like, okay, you got your clickbait, you got your headlines for that week type of thing. And it was never, ever going to be a reality. But because of me signing with LeBron and Mav, I had the opportunity to even be great in my own right. They gave

me the best fighting chance and built a team around me. And the thing that I realize now is the reason why they're probably still pissed at me to this day. They don't lose. They don't bet on anything that's not a sure thing. And what I did and the way I carried myself and the way that I was in my time during Cleveland

was pure and blatant disrespect to them for giving me everything that I could have ever needed to be successful. So something that's still to this day, I think now that we're talking about it, I haven't completely truly got over yet how I let them down. And 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, right? 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. I see you got a lot of ink. Do you remember your first tattoo? What made you, what, do you remember your first tattoo and how old. And when I got to a little bit higher place in life,

I'm kind of like, let me test and see if you still love me after this. So I went that first semester in college station. I went and got a tattoo. It said, against all odds, on the inside of my arms. And I got a Proverbs thing on my chest. John Bones Jones has this Philippine tattoo. I'm like, I'm going to get it. I'm and got a tattoo. It said, Against All Odds on the inside of my arms.

And I got a Proverbs thing on my chest. John Bones Jones has this Philippians, part 13. I got a Proverbs 3, 5 through 6. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding and all your ways submit to him and he will make your path straight. And I got that.

And I remember going to the lake house six months later. And my mom was like, why are you jumping in the lake with your shirt on? Ah! Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe he's nothing. She took it pretty good for what I expected to be honest. She kind of just went back in the house and like now we're at the point where my dad's starting to get some tattoos and like. Oh, you influenced him. I think I had a little bit of an input in that.

Like I think I've had an input in his mind shift just to see that like, you know, if I can go through what I've been through and still be sitting here today with the attitude and the outlook on life that I have, and I truly feel that anybody can. And my dad's had his flaws in life, my mom as well, and we all do as human beings. But like, it's about never giving up. And it's about keep going is the mantra mindset that I use. Keep going. You know, God only gives the toughest test in life to people that can truly handle it. Soldiers. Soldiers. So like, yeah, a lot of mine was self-inflicted, but I feel to a point today that I'm here

for a better purpose, for a bigger purpose. Maybe being a Hall of Fame NFL football player was not what I was meant to be in life. And I'm okay with that. Right? I'm okay with continuing to grow as a man and figure out exactly what makes me tick what my new passions are in life and what my new like Goals are and where I want to go Is it true that you were about to fake a flunky drug test at the combine and your dad faked a medical emergency? I Don't remember the medical emergency, but I remember

Having the greatest Training camp leading up to the NFL combine. And five, six days before the combine, I drove from San Diego to the Beverly Hills Hotel, and I wanted to go to Greystone Manor and then west Hollywood. I got with some NFL boys and I went to Hermosa Beach and I got drunk and then I went to the club and I remember as this whole day progressed on, I was a little too lit at the club that night, about one.

And I remember, because I'm kind of like in and out of it, somebody handed me a blunt and me really being not all there and composed. And I remember the blunt coming up right in front of my face and I remember my immediate is like, but I couldn't tell my agent or anybody the next day if I actually did smoke this or not. So now it's like full crisis mode.

We're taking tests and we're doing this. And like, now the next six days are like flush, flush the system. You fail a drug test, you go from being to maybe the potential first Pick in the draft so we'll see you in the third round and that's a five-year deal turned to a four Turn to guarantee money and nothing like Everything is riding on this so I did go into Indy with a very very Question mark on if I was gonna pass my drug test for smoking weed

And so so you pass you. Passed. I guess I didn't smoke it. Wow, oh okay. So. Wow, he's driving. Yeah, because considering the way you've been partying, bro. I just remember that going to grab it. Yeah.

I remember that and I remember for some reason just, still locked in even if I was out of it. When you were coming out, there was a comparison because of your ability to dual threat, to run and throw the football. You got compared to a little bit of RG3, a little bit of Russell Wilson. Did you like those comparisons?

I liked the Brett Favre comparisons the most, I think, because Brett shaped the way of what I wanted to be as a quarterback. I didn't know at the time back then, really, until I got out of Cleveland of what Brett's story was in Atlanta. Right. You know I had this Brett Favre Atlanta Falcon jersey that I wore religiously when I was in College Station and I didn't know that he was there and like what happened and him getting to

Green Bay and what a like huge turning point and pivot it was for him in his life. But that's um you know that's the one that I liked the most and that I appreciated the most because he was the man. Did you really text a Browns coach during the draft and say, hey, let's wreck the league? So me and Dow Loggins, who's my quarterback coach, we had a good relationship. And he was texting me throughout the draft, be patient, bro, be patient.

We're coming to get you. And this was a very personal conversation between me and him Okay, that he told to a friend that then got spun into what it is today Okay, so there was no you know, I'm still walking across the stage doing all this. I'm doing my thing like I'm more excited to go to Avenue in New York and party with Drake and the boys after to celebrate Then I am really thinking about football at this time. Everything to me was like getting drafted in the first and going to this party afterwards.

And like it's what it was the cherry on top of the whole thing was what it was for me. So, you know, that was a very personal text that I sent that was internally supposed to motivate us to be and get to where we wanted to go, that then was then spun as to me being this cocky, full-headed, you know, egotistical little shit that doesn't know anything about the NFL. And I don't think that's necessarily how I was. Now you can ask Andrew Hawkins or Joe Thomas or Joe Hayden or, you know, the legends in the building that we had with us.

And they would probably tell you that I was carrying myself like that. From my perspective of things, that was never my intention. Nor did I want to carry myself like that. It was against everything that I was raised and ingrained to be. Did you want to go to Cleveland? Where did you want to get drafted? Did you want to go to Cleveland? Where did you want to get drafted? Where did I want to get drafted?

Probably Dallas. I love Jerry. I love getting a chance to go to sporting events in that stadium and cross in circles with him. I love getting the opportunity as a college Texas A&M kid to walk into that box and like rub shoulders with the honcho. Yeah. The guy.

Yeah. So like I love that. And 16th pick of that draft was Dallas. And I remember the anticipation in Radio City when that pick was coming up and I had my fingers crossed under that table the entire time. Please let me go put that star on my helmet. Looking back now, thank God it didn't happen because I wouldn't be sitting here today.

You're saying that you wanted to go to Dallas, you hoping Dallas draft you, but you said you're glad you didn't go to Dallas because? I think knowing what I was doing in Cleveland, how hard it was for me to party and move and do these kind of things, if you would have put me in a landscape that was my backyard that I knew, I'd been driving from College Station up to Dallas when there wasn't nothing going on in College Station.

So it was something I was familiar with. I know who I was hanging around at that point in my life and I think it would have been just an absolute disaster to the point of Um, it wouldn't have been suicide that would have been the issue. It would have been drinking and driving It would have been taking a bag from somebody you shouldn't take it from and just boom Could have been over in an instant So I think I know myself well enough to be able to say that it would have been bad in its own right. And luckily, thankfully, you know, it didn't happen,

even though at that time, it's what I wanted. What were your study habits like in Cleveland? How often did you study? Did you watch tape? Did you study the game? When you're in meetings, did you were you attentive? What was Johnny's study habits, practice habits like? I would say, you know, Kyle Shanahan was the most detailed person that I had ever seen in my life. And I thought Cliff Kingsbury was really, really good, but Shanahan took it to a different level. He could coach 11, 12 positions on the offense,

detail, placement, hand placement, every single thing. So our meetings and things were incredibly detailed. My quarterback room was not a home for me because of Brian Hoyer. Brian Hoyer had been waiting on opportunity to be able to go really provide for his family, get an opportunity. And he saw how much of an upper hand he had on me, and he didn't hold back when it came to that. So there was instances in the quarterback room early on where I would ask the same question a couple times

and he'd be at the head of the table and go, pfft, again? We're doing this again? Wow. Keep him out of it, right? We're doing this again? Wow. Keep him out of it, right? Let's just cut that off. And I don't have a bad word to say about Brian Hoyer. That is just fact of what happened in that room.

So when that happened. So if we were to ask another quarterback that's in that room. Go ask Connor Shaw. Go ask Connor Shaw, who played at South Carolina and was with us in Cleveland. Go ask him how Brian Hoyer was in that room. Go ask Dow Loggins how he was in that room. And it's okay.

But at that point in time of where I was and I'm the franchise guy, I could have used a little help, especially when they knew what I was doing. And I've said this before in the past and people have said, why don't you take self accountability for what it was and you not putting in the work? I didn't know what work like that was. I didn't know what the grind was because I was great at Texas A&M without it. So a sense of entitlement comes in that I can do it the same way because I don't know any better.

So when you have that going on in the quarterback room, then I just do this. I ain't speaking. If I question something I'm not asking. I'm embarrassed. I'm getting dogged by a guy who's supposed to be my teammate. When I don't know I'm trying to figure it out. I don't know what cover three is. You know what we did in A&M? If that linebacker is tucked in and swaps faster than him, bang. I'm throwing the bubble and he's down the sideline. I wasn't looking at safeties. I'm not looking at one high, two high rotation. My mind didn't work that way from a football player perspective.

And then when I'm going into my safe space quarterback room, I'm getting, so I'm not saying a word. Now I'm struggling. Now I'm getting behind. Now I don't know the detail of the plays because I'm not going home and dialing it in even more. In the building, I studied film. I wanted to watch these Rex Grossman clips. new NFL season, NFL Daily is going to look back. It is a special six episode series where myself, Greg Rosenthal and some of the top NFL minds

like Kevin Harlan, Mina Kimes and Bill Barnwell make the case for each player. We're taking a look back, giving you NFL Daily's top 25 players of the last 25 years. So who made the list? You know, Tom Brady's on it. Where's Patrick Mahomes? Mahomes is under the end zone! Touchdown Kansas City!

He's on it. How about Lamar Jackson? Jackson takes it himself. Look at him dart back and forth. Oh, he broke his ankles and he's got a touchdown. He is Houdini. You are going to have to listen to find out, listen to NFL Daily's top 25 players of the last 25 years, starting on June 30th on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I wanted to watch RG3 2012 season. I wanted to see how you do this stuff. And I watched it.

Did I grind it the way that Peyton Manning does? Absolutely not. I didn't even know that was a thing until Josh McCown got in the building the next year. And when Josh McCown came in, the shift in that room went through the roof of positivity. When I got there, he comes up to me and he goes, you want to be a great quarterback? I go, yeah. He goes, tie a string to the end of my backpack and you can follow me around wherever you want and I'll show you what it takes to really be a quarterback in the NFL. Now when that goes to the practice field and we're out there and we're dialing in these bang eights, we're throwing the comeback.

McAllen's sitting there like, you can fucking do this. I can't make that throw, but you can. What do you think that does for a second year player's confidence? Through the roof. Through the roof. Now our team as a whole is not the same. Our organization, in a sense, inside the building is still incredibly dysfunctional. But for those first like, dysfunctional but for those first like you know 10-12 weeks of the season in 2015 we're not winning no we only win two games that year like me as a football player I'm growing John DeFilippo who's our offensive coordinator like we're growing together his energy in the room and what it is is like

positive and it's me Josh McCown and Connor Shaw again and there is a huge shift in that quarterback room that next year and I start to get confidence and I start to do this and then life happens to me again to where I'm not taking care of myself right and I'm frustrated in the building and I'll never forget, probably about week 13 or 14 of the season, I'm walking out of Coach Petten's office or I'm upstairs in the, where the coaches offices are in Cleveland. And I walked by Jimmy O'Neal's office and he's like,

hey Johnny, come in here for a sec. I'm like, oh, it's our defensive coordinator. I'm like, what's up coach? And I'm chill with everybody. Like I'm up, that's just how I am. And he's like, sitting back at his desk. I got his foot up and he goes, you know, we'd be a really good football player

if you got your head out of your ass. And I'm like, so caught off guard. Now this confidence that I'm building is immediately just, I don't know if you meant it in a way or just like, you know, you're two and 12 and your team is struggling and you're like, you know, looking to ways to vent or whatever it was, but this happened. And when I left that office

and I went back down to the quarterback room, I was white as a ghost. So white that Josh McCown looked at me just like you are and was like, what happened? And I'm like stuttering through this story. And Josh McCown gets up out of his seat and walks straight up to that to that fucking office. Now what was said, I don't exactly know what it is. But when he came back in that room, he was pissed. He said, you don't do that. And this league with a young guy and somebody like, you just don't break me in half. And from there I was broken.

I didn't give a fuck. I didn't care about that team. I didn't care about that. What my role was. And there's no excuse. All of these things led up to be the perfect failure. And at the end of the day, it's on my shoulders. But when you're starting to get a little momentum

and you get broken like that, that's when the running to Vegas happened and me missing the last game of the season. That's when the wig story comes out and when I'm really running. Two, three weeks after this, when this happened, I go straight home. I go straight to my basement.

I get the biggest bottle of Hennessy out of the bottom of the drawer. And now I'm sitting in the basement. I'm listening to future every second every day. I'm partying by myself, just to try and like get out of this reality of a situation that I'm living in with a head coach that wants nothing to do with me with a DC who's saying if I get my head out of my ass, we'll have a chance. Just this whole perfect storm of my ass, we'll have a chance. Just this whole perfect storm of just like, fuck this.

And when that happened, I was done. What was your relationship like with Josh Gordon? You have a guy and we know he's had his issues, his struggles, very similar to what you're sharing with us right now. What was your relationship with Josh? Great. I saw a relationship with Josh? Great. I saw a side of Josh that the rest of the world

didn't get to see. I saw a guy that was from that trap, from that bad neighborhood growing up, who had beat the odds to be able to get there. One of the most physically talented specimens that you'll ever see on a football field. He struggled with a lot of the same things that I struggle with. And I tried my best throughout those times to be a better influence around

Josh than a lot of other people were because a lot of his boys didn't give a shit at that point in time and you know should I have done things differently in our relationship to not you, sway him certain ways because I think I definitely had the juice. We didn't do drugs together. You didn't do drugs. We didn't do drugs together. He would, he loved the weed, man.

He loved it. And when he would come over to my apartment, all he ever wanted to do was roll it and put it on the counter. He just wanted to be included on the whole thing, which is the way his mind kind of worked. But he never smoked around me. He never mean we went on trips together. We went to Aspen. We went everywhere. Like J.G. was my dog to the core.

And funny, you asked and just spoke to him yesterday. And he sounds like he's in the best place that I've seen him in years. And it takes time and getting away from it. And for me and him, we're talking about golf now. And golf is kind of like an avenue that I never thought me and me and JG would be able to like talk about golf, go play and like golf has really shifted my mindset and being able to still continuously give me competition.

But as much as it is against other people when you're playing, golf is always about yourself and battling yourself six inches between your ears. and then, you know, getting in a good headspace to go up and hit a good shot. John, I want to get you out of here. You, you mentioned that once you left Cleveland, that you contemplated suicide and you spent all your money. Clearly that's the lowest point of your life.

Clearly that's the lowest point of your life. Was it a culmination of, I'm not where I thought I would be as far as in the NFL? You're in the NFL, but you're not playing. And you're not, you feel you're not getting the support that you need or deserves in order for Johnny to be Johnny. Because you just, sometimes you need somebody, just a little support. You need somebody to say, Johnny, hey bro, bro you can do this Pat you on the back instead

of kicking the butt all the time it's when did you know what so what happened when you're contemplating taking your own life it's different it's it's not that I don't have the support it's not that I don't have the team because at that point in time I had every single person you could ever think trying to reach out. And I'm just blocking people at every single turn. And I think for me, it was something I didn't find out until I went to play in Canada again. I remember having this feeling in Cleveland that I didn't love football, okay, but it was a feeling.

And when I didn't play for a while and I'm out of the league and I'm trying to get back in, I ended up going to Canada. feeling and when I didn't play for a while and I'm out of the league and I'm trying to get back in I Ended up going to Canada and when I walked into that locker room for the first time and walked out on a practice football field Every single feeling that I had felt in that Cleveland locker room came back to me in that Canadian locker room And I knew right then and there that I didn't truly truly love this game To the point of where I need to do what I need to do to be successful. So the suicide thing comes in when you look at life and you say, I fucked up the biggest

golden opportunity that you could have ever imagined. And this is where I think whenever you said what you said about the fan controlled football league, it is sad Shannon What you said on that day is exactly right? It is sad to watch a guy who had all the potential in the world all the opportunity all the Resources and team around him and he still goes Fuck that but what if I told you today that I don't think that I loved when I was doing enough to ever get into the mix of doing it the right way.

I went through that period with Josh McCown where we did it, but like it never was like over the top. And I'm not in the gym. I'm not grinding. I'm not doing the things that I did back in the day that made me great. So now I realized that I didn't love the game of football like that. I just happened to be immensely talented at it. I happen to have great teammates around me, great coaches,

great, perfect storm to be able to get me to walk across that hall at Radio City Music Hall, walk across that stage. So that feeling came back in Canada. I realized I don't love the game. And then when the game's gone from you, there's a huge transition and every guy will tell you what the transition is to figuring out your identity and who you are as a person. And I truly feel like from 2017 on, that's seven years,

that that's what I've been doing. And my mission has been to try and stay away, get a little bit of this hype off me, and just live and find out about life, to be a great uncle, to be a great brother, to be a great son, to be a great role model for Texas A&M, to be a great alumni, a leader, to be a great resource for my guys who play at Texas A&M.

And these are all things that I'm trying to do moving forward that I've completely neglected in the past. If I could say, Johnny, you could go back, what would probably be one of the two things that you wish you could do over? If I could go back to a certain point in time, I would drop myself right after that in the locker room of the Oklahoma game and the cotton

bowl. Knowing what I know now, I would have known how to handle myself. I would have known how important and imperative it is to be a better teammate than just numbers on a field on Saturday. There's something to be said about how your guys ride for you when you're doing the right things in the building. And that 2013 year for us at Texas A&M, a lot of internal problems were happening because their leader is distracted.

Their horse that makes this whole carriage go is fucked up. And the shame that I have for letting guys down like Cedric Aboye and like Jake Matthews and Mike Evans is the same shame that I carry with me to this day about letting down Joe Thomas as a guy who's in the end of his Hall of Fame career and is looking for somebody to come in and lead this team and then you get me. It's tough, you know, it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing to have been the guy that have let down some overall really great athletes of my time and of my generation. 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 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 of regret. Like I regret wasting a couple of Joe Thomas's last years in Cleveland. I regret disrespecting LeBron and not making sure. Taking advantage of that situation.

That's making sure what it meant to me. Showing him that I give a fuck enough to just do what's right, to listen to Mav and listen to the team they built around me. You know, it fucks me up that I messed up our second year at Texas A&M and we went seven and four or whatever. Because that was our chance to win a national title. We could have lost the game against Duke. Had a cool game against Duke, one that was like a legendary kind of tale on it but like I almost wish to this day that we lost that game because I would have

came back. Right. So us having that legendary run against the bowl game that's kind of like I kind of wish we would have lost because then I would have came back with a vengeance. And I probably wouldn't have got drafted because I would have gotten in trouble. But it doesn't sit right with me certain things. And those are three things. How I wasted my 2013 season, how I treated the legends in that building in Cleveland, and how I treated LeBron and Mav. And you know, from there, I can even take it a step further and say, in 2016,

I don't think I treated Drake the way that I should have with representing the clothes that I was wearing and his OVO brand and his label and everything. You know, at that point in time, I was so selfish that I was dragging everybody that was tied to me through the mud. Now, it's regret. I'm not harboring on this in this in any kind of way. I'm just calling it exactly what it is in the way that I feel about it.

And you know, I owe those people apology and hopefully one day down the line, I'll be able to have the opportunity as a man to be able to look them in the eye and be able to do that. I understand. This is my last question for you. I understand what that win in Tuscaloosa did for your career But it seems to me it was that win against Oklahoma and the Cotton Bowl that really changed it for you You know they're coming down from Norman we're coming up from College Station It's a clash in the biggest stadium in the state of Texas. The spectacle for us in Texas. This is the granddaddy of them all.

Not what goes on out in the Rose Bowl out west for a Texas kid, for a Kyler Murray, for these guys we were talking about to play in that stadium and do what we did that day was like. You can't tell me shit from there on out. And what a shallow mindset to have, what a selfish mindset to have. But being a Texas kid, it's almost feeling like one of those real big dreams and pillars of your life

has been accomplished. And I didn't treat people the right way after that, and it's unfortunate. As we sit here today, how is Johnny Menzel doing? Probably the happiest I've ever been in my life. And I think I went through a period of time after the documentary came out, where I maybe acted a little bit like I did in the past.

And it's easy to let ego and fame and stuff kind of creep back in. And what I've done now since really, you know, December-ish, you know, it's new, three months. But I've insulated myself in a way with a team that I can trust, people that I love that are doing nothing but looking out for my best wishes, best regards. They know me.

They're not letting me cheat. They're holding me accountable. And it's not going to happen overnight. It is going to be a slow gradual process to get to who I want to be as a man. But in my opinion, sitting here today with you and join the hell out of this conversation, I feel like I'm on the right path to where I need to go. And as Johnny Manziel, not as Johnny Football. You were once married, and this is the last one you were once married.

Could you see yourself being married again? Or is there someone in Johnny Manziel's life that's keeping Johnny grounded? Nope. It is. It is my friends right now, my family. No, it is my two nieces with a third one on the way that I talk to every single day on FaceTime that are really my reason why I'm still here. Right. And a huge reason of my success is based off my sister and my mother and my father and my true core friends and my team I have around me.

So and my mother and my father and my true core friends and my team I have around me. So love will come when it comes, but for right now I'm focused on getting a bag, taking care of my money, getting back to where I need to be, being the best brother, being the best uncle and being there for my family and my university in a way I need to be to make people proud

that I wanna make proud. I don't wanna continuously keep letting people down when I feel like I'm destined for bigger greater things than that in life I am so proud that you're sitting here today, and you found your reason to live Johnny Menzel ladies and gentlemen Who are the 25 greatest football players to grace the gridiron since the year 2000? Introducing NFL Daily's top 25 players of the last 25 years. Join me, Greg Rosenthal and an all-star cast of media personalities including Mina Keim, Steve Weisch, Kevin Harlan and more for a look at football's best since the turn of the century. Listen to NFL Daily's top 25 players of the last 25 years starting on June 30th

on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.