ESPN analyst Merril Hoge has teed off on Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel on multiple occasions, and Manziel has done little to prove Hoge’s critiques wrong.
Now that Manziel is getting his first start of 2015 Sunday and the third of his young career, Jeff Schudel of the News-Herald in Willoughby, Ohio asked Manziel on Friday if there “is something inside you that makes you want to shut up people like Merrill Hoge?”
And Manziel responded with the line of the week.
“I think Merril Hoge needs to worry about his big neckties,” Manziel said, chuckling at his own answer.
So, we now know that Manziel has been watching and listening to Hoge’s criticisms, which Hoge has laid on thickly and consistently. And while wearing ties with abnormally large knots.
“Talking about Merril, he’s been that way since I decided to come out for the draft,” Manziel said Friday. “That’s really part of it. But no, no extra motivation or bump for me. It’s just go out and play and quiet him with the way we go out and win on Sundays. That’s what we want to do.”
Earlier this week Hoge said the Browns need to “cut bait” and “move on” from Manziel immediately, and that was mild compared to what he said around the time the Browns drafted Manziel last year.
Among the things Hoge has said about Manziel in the past...
“It will be like a Tim Tebow.”
“I see bust written all over him.”
“Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Baltimore, they love the plan Cleveland is under.”
Until Friday, though, Manziel took the high road instead of the tie road.