Inside story on Johnny Manziel pro day with Browns, intersection with Chiefs

With the No. 10 overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft, the Kansas City Chiefs selected Texas Tech quarterback Patrick Mahomes. He spent his rookie season behind Alex Smith, playing in just one game before taking the NFL by storm in the years that followed.

But three years earlier, the Chiefs were looking at another quarterback who flourished under Kliff Kingsbury. They held the No. 23 pick, but they saw that player go to the Cleveland Browns one pick before.

That was Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel.

“Andy Reid and the Chiefs, I think they were picking next. … Now, would they have pulled the trigger? I don’t know,” TexAgs’ Billy Liucci told Andy Staples on Andy Staples On3. “But by every account, they were going to draft him in that spot. So the Kansas City Chiefs would have drafted Johnny, allegedly. And it’s on enough authority that I do believe that was the case. And I know the Chiefs … also came back a second time, I think, for Johnny and were interested.”

The story which led to the Chiefs’ interest in Manziel starts with a workout for the Browns, which was chronicled in Netflix’s documentary released this week. In a nutshell, that workout didn’t go well, and Liucci said it all started with a meeting beforehand.

“The Cleveland Browns in that state — and hell, I don’t know, maybe their current state — and Johnny Manziel in his state in 2013, it was a match that never should have happened just based off of that workout,” Liucci said. “I don’t know how much of it got glossed over. He told me the other day, he was like, ‘I wanted to tell that version of the story.’

“Because they were on the lake in Austin. And they were told, you can’t leave Austin after 2:30 p.m. … and have, like, some lead time. That probably meant he was meeting with them no later than 6:00, if not 5:00. And the Browns flew in, they were at a nice country club, private room dinner or an early dinner, and he said they were on the lake and looked at the phone and it was 4:30. So they had to basically wrangle and scramble like you and I would do to get an Uber and get a private jet because that hour and a half drive could not take an hour and a half. They flew it to College Station, so it would only take you know 15, 20 minutes vs. an hour and a half. He goes to the dinner with the Browns.”

Yes, they had to get a private jet to go the 80 miles from Austin to College Station. Manziel made it in time, but Liucci said the real craziness started that night.

“He calls me like three or four times. It’s a Friday night, it’s Easter weekend. No one’s in town,” Liucci recalled. “I’m like, I’m in bed watching TV and they’re wrapping up dinner. And I don’t answer, I don’t answer, I don’t answer. Then, a girl calls that was at the dinner with them. I answer, and it’s him on the other line … and then I realized what’s going on.”

Ultimately, Liucci decides to go, and he sees Erik Burkhardt — Manziel’s agent — there. Overnight, though, Manziel realized he needed some gear. He not only didn’t have any footballs, but he didn’t any shorts or cleats. He needed the Texas A&M equipment trainer to help out, but remember, it was Easter weekend. That meant it was hard to get in touch with people.

Someone answered the phone, though, and he helped Manziel get what he needed. Well, everything except one very important thing: people to catch the ball.

“About 1:00 in the morning, we’re a big suite and I’m sleeping in on the couch,” Liucci said. “[Manziel] comes out of the room goes hey, we need to call — it was the A&M equipment manager — I said, ‘It’s 1 a.m., dude, on Easter weekend.’ ‘We don’t have footballs, I don’t have shorts. I just have these.’ And they were, like, these — I don’t even know what he was wearing. ‘I don’t have shorts, I don’t have cleats.’

“Luckily, the assistant equipment manager … woke up in the middle of night, left his wife and kids, drove over there, laid all the stuff out for him for this, like, 7 a.m. Saturday morning workout. And then, they get there. And oh, by the way, there’s no receivers.”

Given the lack of receivers, three people — Manziel’s manager, his lawyer and Burkhardt — ran the routes. It went as well as it could have, Liucci said, but Manziel maintained his confidence.

However, Liucci wasn’t convinced and wondered how it’d impact Cleveland’s decision.

“I think they were just doing like the tops of the routes and they were just running in feet and catching them. It was like, the swing passes to the backs,” Liucci said. “And Johnny said he killed it. Like I said in the documentary, I called I think it was maybe Erik, maybe it was Brad. I called one of them and said how’d it go? And they said it was a shit show. It was awful. Johnny’s just his way back to the lake, ‘I killed it.’

“And they said that and I’m like, ‘Well, the Browns won’t draft him.'”

Ultimately, of course, the Browns did so with the No. 22 overall pick. That took away the Chiefs’ chance to select him at No. 23 overall. But if he did fall to Kansas City, it’s worth wondering whether Mahomes would’ve been the choice in 2017. It’s easy to say yes considering by that point, Manziel had already left the Browns.

But it further adds to the unique connection between Manziel and Mahomes, stemming from how they impacted their college teams.

“You laugh and you go okay, the Pat Mahomes thing, there’s some tie-ins to Johnny there,” Liucci said. “One of them was that, but the other one is this. And I say timing, it was everything with Johnny. The timing at A&M … couldn’t have been more perfect. [The] Aggies were desperate to win. I went into it, too. They were leaving the Big 12. It was this 100-year decision. They were breaking away from Texas. For all the money they were spending and the limb they were going out on, the last thing they wanted to do was be a laughingstock. … There was so much pressure. And here’s this guy, Johnny Manziel. The timing was perfect for A&M.

“That offense was perfect for the SEC at that time. He was the perfect trigger man. Kingsbury was a perfect play caller, the perfect guy for Johnny. [Kevin] Sumlin had that swagger. It was the only way it could have worked for Johnny and A&M and Sumlin and Kliff and everyone else. The timing couldn’t have been [better].”