Bengals coach Marvin Lewis has offered up multiple apologies for referring to Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel as a “midget” earlier this week, but it doesn’t sound like Manziel was all that upset about Lewis’s use of the term or the implication that the Bengals didn’t have to worry about him based on his stature.
A preseason attempt to ruffle Manziel’s feathers in the preseason was effective enough to get the rookie to flip a bird that cost him $12,000, but this one didn’t seem to hit home. Manziel was asked about Lewis’s comment on Wednesday while discussing his preparations for his first NFL start with the media and said he wasn’t too ruffled by what the Bengals coach had to say.
“I don’t think they’re saying that if they play Drew Brees, even though he’s 6-foot. They wouldn’t just completely throw him out of the game plan because he’s 6-foot, but for me, I didn’t take it any type of way,” Manziel said, via the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “It didn’t make me feel any way. Obviously, Coach Lewis called a couple of people in the organization wanting to apologize, but for me, it didn’t really get to me. I was up here trying to prepare for practice today and the rest of the week so it didn’t even really get to me. … It’s absolutely funny. My height, I’m not going to sprout five inches over the course of the week so it is what it is. My height is my height, and I need to overcome it through other pieces of my game. I think that’s it.”
Manziel said his job is to avoid “all the clutter” and execute an offense that he says will have him looking different from “the Johnny that you saw at Texas A&M.” Just what kind of Johnny he looks like is one of the more interesting questions that will be answered this weekend, especially with the Browns’ chances of hanging in the playoff race riding on the outcome.