The Browns aren’t worried about what Johnny Manziel does off the field. Or on a field that isn’t a football field.
Less than a week after the Padres made Manziel a 28th-round draft pick, coach Mike Pettine said the team has no concerns about Manziel possibly choosing to play baseball.
“My first question was I didn’t really even realize that he played baseball,” Pettine said Wednesday, via the Associated Press. “I think it was back in high school, and I didn’t even get a chance to talk to him about it.”
Pettine danced around the question of whether the Padres’ decision to draft Manziel was simply a publicity stunt.
“I don’t know,” Pettine said. “When I heard it, somebody texted me about it, and I didn’t think it was that big of a deal because the kid’s die-hard football. It was a bit of a surprise.”
It’s the kind of surprise that ultimately won’t mean anything to the Browns, since it’s highly unlikely that Manziel will ever play baseball. But it’s the kind of surprise with which the Browns had better get comfortable, because there’s reason to believe that, with Manziel, there will be one surprise after another, throughout his career.