Stand down, Doug Flutie. Take a break, George Reed. Just give it up, Jackie Parker. A new king of the CFL could be coming.
Maybe.
Hamilton Tiger-Cats coach June Jones, who has signed a three-year deal after completing his stint as the interim coach, believes that quarterback Johnny Manziel could end up being historically great in Canada.
“I think he’d be the best player to ever play up here,” Jones said, via CFL.ca. “He can throw it and he can run it like nobody ever has been able to do.”
The Tiger-Cats flirted with signing Manziel during the season, but they never did. They apparently intend to try to do so for 2018.
“I think he’s a phenomenal player,” Jones said. “I think it was kind of unfortunate what happened to him in the NFL, some of that was by his own means, too.”
Some of it, June? Some of it? Most of it would be more accurate. All of it could be accurate, too.
So what will happen with Manziel and the Tiger-Cats?
“I think he’ll either be with us or he won’t,” Jones said.
Jones raved about Manziel’s workout for the Tiger-Cats, even though he wasn’t “quite at top shape.”
“I saw it in college, I saw it on the film, I saw it against Alabama, I saw it against everybody,” Jones said. “The things that he would do up here, he excelled at at the National Football League level. I think he has a tremendous upside and it really is in his lap to decide if that’s what he wants to do.”
If Manziel is capable of playing as well as Jones thinks he can, Manziel won’t be sticking around the CFL long enough to become one of the league’s all-time greats. If he’s that good, the NFL will come calling again, sooner than later.
And Manziel surely would answer that call.