re: Okay, still looking for that cannon arm???

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I guess I just remember when Bucky was our QB and any pass made you hold your breath and yet those teams were awesome. I'd love it if Manziel could do it all but with a few tweaks to the offense they could make it nearly unstoppable, he is a talent worth working around.


I think this is correct. Work being the key word. Johnny needs work, and lots of it, but the reward could be incredible. I am still waiting to hear that he is a hard worker and a great leader. Lot's of people seem to not like him. I heard the offensive line feels like he is selling them out in the games because he abandons the pocket as soon as possible as opposed to practice, and gets super defensive and has gotten in a few arguments with his line as a result.

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This is very hard to prove one way or another. What we do know is Manziel improved drastically from the Spring to the Fall and he went on his own to the QB camp in California. That would indicate a guy that is working on his craft. No doubt he is a cocky dude but certainly every word in the PC's about him by his teammates are glowing. It seems as though he is a guy that talks a big game but is so far backing it up. That's going to make you some enemies but in the end if he can do it on the field he will earn respect. I don't think Sumlin will put up with him putting himself above the team though and there has been no indication as such. It's hard to know much about Manziel personally since he isn't allowed to really talk to the media yet.

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One other thing I haven't heard pointed out on Manziel that is a benefit to his throws is we have had very few drops. Loved Tanny last year but part of the reason we had 60 drops is he threw with a cannon.


Fuller alone has a ridiculous amount of drops on screens in the flat, on balls with very little velocity. I think you are sort of making this up.

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I am "making this up" that Tannehill threw hard last year? Really? Don't get me wrong, it is the WR's job to catch the ball if they can get their hands on it but my only point is that it is easier to catch a softer thrown ball than a bullet. There is no way to prove that of course but all it takes is a pair of eyes and some experience playing catch to understand this. I do agree though that Fuller was horrific last year with drops but it wasn't just him, they shared the wealth. Really though this point became obvious to me watching the switch from Manziel to Showers. Showers throws bullets and you could see the receivers having more trouble holding on to the balls he threw, just watch the tape.

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We don't need Andrew Luck in order to make this offense work, we have enough talent to adjust to it and actually be even more dangerous than a traditional Air Raid.


Don't think this is true at all. We haven't been able to run the ball, or see Johnny be vertical against a good defense. If we play dink and dunk and tuck and run against good SEC defenses we will get killed. Johnny needs to sit back and sling it, or at least show the ability to, or we won't get anywhere.

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I have said about 3 times so far we have to throw deep so I don't understand your point. My point is that we don't need a prototypical pocket passer that has an arm touched by God in order to make this offense work. I don't know anyone saying we can just do "dink and dunk" and "Johnny run the ball" and think we can beat Bama or LSU. I do think Manziel's legs are a huge asset. I also think he playmaking ability is a huge asset. They aren't enough but that isn't the whole package either.

One thing I will say for certain and will gladly argue is Manziel is the best QB we have on the team right now and we need to go with it. Honestly I like Joekel better than Showers as #2 but he is slower and has a slower release. Joekel makes better decisions with the ball though and is more accurate even if he doesn't have the cannon.

I think this will be a very interesting thread in about 3-4 weeks. Through 3 games Johnny, and the offense as a whole really, has given both sides of the arguement plenty of ammo. It's one thing to debate arm strength and a totally separate thing to debate being effective offensively. Either way, we won't be know until about 2-3 games into our conference schedule so I'm mentally bookmarking this to debate until then.

Kind of random that TeLeFaWx talking about Manziel not being liked or not being a good leader and then he tweeted the following this morning:

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Ben Stuart ?@Ben_Stuart_
A good leader possesses both the humility to receive counsel and the courage to make a decision.
Retweeted by Johnny Manziel

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I don't really buy internet board rumors about how teams are acting behind closed doors unless I hear it from a player.

For example, When Jerrod Johnson was starting in '09, I watched the Colorado game with a redshirted player at the time, and he told me Tannehill is better everyday but Sherman didn't want to keep either of them off the field because of athletic ability. (And I really like JJ).

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Kind of random that TeLeFaWx talking about Manziel not being liked or not being a good leader and then he tweeted the following this morning:

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I mean you don't have to believe it, it ain't a big deal, or even too damning of an accusation, imo. Some might disagree, which is why it won't be posted on a pay-site by anyone with actual authority. But seeing as who it was coming from, I have no reason but not to believe he heard it from an offensive lineman's mouth.

Either way I don't care. People usually rally around a winner.

I never went to Breakaway myself.

Honestly, I didn't notice the lisp after the first couple times I talked to him. He's really chill in a non-speaking setting, as well. Very sincere, down to earth, good Christian guy.

Ain't gonna go near your gay anecdote, FaWx, but it did make me

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Through 3 games Johnny, and the offense as a whole really, has given both sides of the arguement plenty of ammo.

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You know, the thing that I keep coming back to is really the play calling. It seemed obvious that during the Florida game we should have tried a few deep passes in the second half. Since they take awhile to develop, Manziel might not have had the patience or the time to sit in the pocket and let it develop. Ready to run to quickly... Maybe they called deep routes and he ended up running instead. I can understand that in his first college game in a brand new offense. Sumlin may have been worried about blocking schemes. Maybe Sumlin wanted to limit turnovers in the first game and throw only shorter passes? If that was the goal, then mission accomplished. A turnover could have iced the game so even at the end of the game the Ags were only a play away from winning. I don't fault Sumlin at all, Ags stayed in the game.

The last 2 games, the Ags haven't needed to go deep and we didn't really try. I guess the lack of them trying makes me wonder about the arm strength. I would love to see him drop back and fling it 50 yards a few times this weekend as they start to open up the offense.

Since they haven't really even tried going deep, it does make me wonder..... Like you said, going to be very interesting to see what happens over the next 2 or 3 weeks.

GIGEM

I've seen some tweets by players about Manziel that seem to indicate he is respected as a player. Sean Porter, who is a leader himself, tweeted before the first game:

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#TVJohnny coming to a television near you on Saturday.. There's just something about this kid. Yall r n for a treat

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He certainly still is a work in progress but a solid game. He needs to work on his fade pass to Evans, that's a great weapon if he can get it down. One thing that certainly helps is our OL combined with his scrambling ability/threat of him running results in him getting more time in the pocket and on a rollout than your average QB. Give your WR's and extra 2 or 3 seconds with 4 in the pattern on most plays and someone is likely to be wide open where you don't need a cannon, you just need to see them and deliver it.

That won't work in the NFL but who cares? I'm betting no teams besides Bama and LSU can really consistently pressure him. Even those teams are going to have to go into single coverage a lot to contain Manziel and even great DB's make mistakes. All it takes is Manziel forcing the opposing team to respect the deep ball and then the short passing game, running game, and middle of the field all start to open up. He has to force those teams to cover deep and the OL has to continue to protect him. It didn't happen against UF in the 2nd half so we will have to see what happens going forward.

Breakaway is creepy.